LIBRARY 

or  THE 

Theological   Seminary, 

PRINCETON,  N.  J. 

BR  45  .H8A  1868 

Perowne,  J.  J.  Stewart  1823- 

1904. 

Immortality 


IMMORTALITY. 


FOUR  SERMONS 


PREACHED    BEFORE   THE 


Bnibeisit])  of  €amlbiitrQC. 


/  /  -  BEING   THE 

HULSEAN  LECTURES  FOR  1868. 


BY    /' 

J.  J.   STEV/ART  'PEROWNE,   B.D. 

Vkc-Triiicipal  and  Professor  of  Hebrew  /«  6"/.  David's  College,  Latnpeter 

P rebcndary  of  St.  David's,    Exaininifig  Chaplain  to  the  Lord 

Bishop  of  Norwich,  Late  Fellow  of  Corpus   Christi 

College,  Cambridge. 


NEW-YORK: 

ANSON  D.   F.   RANDOLPH  ^c  COMPANY, 
770  Broadway. 

1870. 


S.  W.  GREEN, 
Pkinter    and    Stereo typer, 

16  and  IS  Jacob  Street,  New-York. 


TO 

CONNOP  THIRLWALL  D.D. 

Lord  Bishop  of  St.  David^Sy 

WITH    PKOKOU.\'D   ADMIRATION   FOR    HIS    GENIUS    AND    LEARNING,    AND   WITH 
A  GRATEFUL  SENSE  OF   MUCH   PERSONAL  KINDNESS   RECEIVED. 


/r;rs°^*^ 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE   I. 
The  Future  Life. 
Modern     theories-Materialism— Pantheisvi'-Spi- 
rittialisni 

LECTURE   II. 
The  Hope  of  the  Gentile. 
The  Egvptian-the  Greek— the  Oriental 40 

LECTURE   III. 
The  Hope  of  the  Jew 7o 

LECTURE    IV. 
The  Hope  of  the  Christian. 

//  rests  tcpon  twofacts-the  Resurrection  of  Christ— 
the  inner  life  of  the  Spirit  .—The  Resurrection 
in  accordance  with  the  analogies  of  Nature 105 

136 

Appendix 


PREFACE. 


These  Lectures  are  a  fragmentary  contribution 
to  the  literature  of  a  great  subject.  Anything 
like  completeness,  or  even  fulness,  of  treatment 
was  impossible  within  the  limits  to  which  I  was 
compelled  to  confine  myself.  And  though  in 
printing,  I  have  added  some  passages  to  the 
Lectures,  as  originally  delivered,  I  have  still 
found  it  necessary  to  omit  many  points  of  inter- 
est and  importance,  which  might  naturally  have 
been  discussed  as  belonging  to  my  subject.  For 
an  omission  of  this  kind  in  the  last  Lecture, 
some  apology  is  due  to  my  readers.  Nothing  is 
said  there  on  the  question  of  future  rewards  and 
punishments,  although  in  the  First  Lecture  it 
was  comprised  within  the  scope  of  my  argument. 
I  had  said,  that  I  hoped  to  show,  that  the  Chris- 
tain  scheme  satisfied  us,  not  only  of  existence, 
but  also  of  recompense  after  death.  But  to  do 
anything  like  justice  to  such  a  question,  it  would 
not  have  been  sufficient  to  maintain  that  Christi- 
anity satisfies  our  conscience,  by  its  clear  recog- 


VIU  PREFACE. 

nition  of  the  truth,  that  future  recompense  will 
be  "  according  to  the  deeds  done  in  the  body." 
It  would  have  been  necessary  also  to  meet  the 
moral  difficulties,  arising  from  the  application  of 
the  term  alcjvco;  (''eternal"),  to  future  punish- 
ments ;  and  this  would  have  involved  a  careful 
investigation,  both  of  the  language  of  scripture, 
and  of  the  history  of  its  interpretation,  from  the 
days  of  Origen  to  our  own.  For  such  an  inves- 
tigation I  have  not  as  yet  been  able  to  command 
the  necessary  leisure. 

It  may  be  well,  perhaps,  to  state  briefly  what 
is  the  scope  of  these  Lectures. 

In  the  First,  I  have  endeavored  to  indicate 
the  leading  features  of  three  systems,  each  of 
which  professes  to  deal  with  the  problem  of  a 
Future  Life,  and  each  of  which  at  the  present 
time  counts  numerous  disciples.  Without  pre- 
tending to  discuss  any  of  these  systems  at  length, 
I  have  satisfied  myself  with  drawing  attention 
to  some  of  their  salient  defects.  Thus,  Material- 
ism assumes  a  great  deal  which  it  cannot  prove, 
and  is  supremely  indifferent  to  facts,  while  pro- 
fessing to  deal  only  with  facts.  Pantheism  de- 
stroys personal  identity  in  another  life,  and  gives 
such  immortality  as  it  has  to  give,  only  to  an 
intellectual  aristocracy.  Spiritualism, — under- 
standing by  that  name  the  system  which  admits 
a  belief  in  God  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 


PREFACE.  ix 

apart  from  Revelation, — argues  for  the  perpe- 
tuity of  individual  existence,  from  the  facts  of 
human  nature  and  the  constitution  of  the  world, 
and  so  far  lends  some  confirmation  to  our  hopes, 
but  fails  to  yield  us  that  certainty  which  we 
crave. 

As  attempts  are  constantly  made,  to  get  rid 
of  the  argument  from  the  witness  in  man  him- 
self to  his  own  immortality,  the  object  of  my 
Second  Lecture  was  to  show,  in  a  summary  re- 
view of  some  of  the  principal  systems  of  Pagan 
belief  and  Pagan  speculation,  how  real  and  how 
wide-spread  is  the  instinct  in  human  nature, 
which  leads  us  to  look  beyond  the  grave.  This 
review  seemed  to  tend  to  the  conclusion,  that  on 
the  whole,  there  was  a  development  of  belief; 
that  generally  speaking,  in  each  nation  the  dog- 
ma grew  in  distinctness,  as  time  went  on ;  and 
that  in  particular  the  moral  element,  the  doctrine 
of  future  retribution,  did  not  belong  to  the 
earlier  stages  of  belief*  But  on  the  other  hand, 
it  was  equally  plain,  that  in  spite  of  this  progress, 
and  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  their  most  brilliant 
thinkers,  to  solve  the  problem  of  man's  destiny, 
they  all  alike  failed  in  casting  any  real  light  on 
life  and  immortality.     They  all  confess  their  im- 

^  See,  on  tliis  growth  of  the  moral  element  in  the  doctrine  of 
a  Future  Life,  J.  H.  Fichte,  die  Scdenfortdauer  unci  die  IVeltsiel- 
I:r?g-  des  Me;tsc/ie;t,  p.  304  ff. 


X  PREFACE. 

perfection, '  they   all   wait   for    some    satisfying 
answer  to  their  hopes  and  yearnings. 

The  Third  Lecture  deals  with  the  problem, 
how  far  a  revelation  of  the  Future  Life  was 
made  to  the  Jews  under  the  Old  Covenant.  Of 
the  remarkable  fact,  that,  in  the  Law  of  Moses, 
the  promises  of  a  Future  Life  are  never  appeal- 
ed to,  as  motives  of  obedience,  I  have  not  at- 
tempted any  explanation.  I  have  merely  sug- 
gested some  considerations,  which  should  weigh 
with  us  in  dealing  with  the  problem.  But  to 
the  wider  question,  what  knowledge  was  actually 
possessed  by  the  saints  of  old,  of  a  future  exist- 
ence, of  retribution  after  death,  and  a  resurrec- 
tion of  the  body,  I  have  endeavored  to  give  an 
answer,  drawn  from  a  comparison  of  all  the 
principal  passages  which  have  any  bearing  upon 
the  subject.  The  result  of  the  investigation 
was,  to  show  that  although  there  is  very  little  of 
a  direct  testimony  to  the  belief  of  the  Jew  in  Im- 
mortality and  a  Resurrection,  yet  that  such  a 
belief  was  virtually  implied,  in  the  fact  of  the 
soul's  conscious  relation  to  a  living  God. 

The  Last  Lecture  explains  the  nature  of  the 
evidence  which  is  furnished  by  Christianity  to 
assure  us  of  a  future  Life,  and  a  Resurrection  of 
the  Body.  Christianity  appeals  to  the  fact  of 
Christ's  Resurrection,  as  the  evidence  that  we 
also  shall  be  raised,  because  by  His  close  and 


PREFACE.  XI 

intimate  union  with  us,  as  our  Redeemer,  His 
Resurrection  is  the  pledge  and  type  of  our  resur- 
rection. Christianity  furnishes  us  also  with  the 
inner  witness  to  this  fact,  in  the  indwelling  of 
Christ's  Spirit  in  our  hearts,  sanctifying  our 
bodies  as  well  as  our  spirits,  and  so  assuring  us 
that  our  bodies,  raised  from  the  dust  and  glori- 
fied, shall  be  reunited  to  the  glorified  spirit. 
The  resurrection  of  the  body  is  then  shown  to 
be  a  reasonable  inference  from  our  natural  con- 
stitution, and  the  difficulty  of  supposing  that 
the  body  which  turns  to  corruption  can  be  raised 
again,  is  met  by  recourse  to  natural  analogies. 
Christianity,  therefore,  gives  us  the  positive  evi- 
dence we  crave,  and  satisfies  the  irrepressible 
yearnings  of  the  human  heart  to  ascertain  its 
future  destiny. 

That  such  a  subject,  at  all  times  of  intrinsic 
interest,  possesses  at  the  present  time  a  peculiar 
importance,  will  not  be  questioned.  Both  at 
•home  and  abroad  may  be  seen  abundant  evidence 
of  the  rapid  growth  of  m^erialistic  doctrines. 
Men  insist,  more  and  more,  upon  the  study  of 
what  they  are  pleased  to  call  facts,  meaning  by 
that  name,  only  such  phenomena  as  come  under 
the  observation  of  the  senses,  and  either  deny 
or  disregard,  as  unknown  and  unknowable,  all 
that  lies  beyond  this  narrow  range  of  observation. 
In  Germany,  the  Pantheistic  philosophy  of  Hegel 


Xll  PREFACE. 

and  Schelling  has  yielded  to  the  materialistic 
doctrines  of  men  like  Vogt,  Moleschott,  and 
others  of  the  .same  school.  It  is  some  evidence 
of  the  prevalence  of  such  doctrines  that  a  man- 
ual such  as  that  of  Biichner  {Kraft  und  Stoff), 
which,  without  laying  claim  to  any  original  re- 
search, summarizes,  and  puts  in  a  clear  and  popu- 
lar form,  the  chief  arguments  of  the  materialists, 
passed  in  five  years  through  seven  editions,  and 
has  now  reached  a  ninth. 

In  France,  if  we  are  to  credit  the  Bishop  of  Or- 
leans {Les  Alarines  de  F Episcopat  justifies  par  les 
faits),  "  Materialism  is  publicly  taught,  under 
the  sanction  of  the  Minister  of  Public  Educa- 
tion, and  is  assuming  every  day  more  vast  and 
more  threatening  proportions."  "  It  is  triumph- 
ant," he  asserts,  "  in  the  School  of  Medicine  in 
Paris.  We  recollect,"  he  continues,  "  those  wild 
cries  of  vive  le  materialisme,  uttered  last  year 
(1867)  at  the  opening  of  the  session:"  and  he 
then  cites  passages  from  a  number  of  theses, 
admitted  by  the  Faculty  of  Medicine,  and  by  the 
authority  of  the  University,  which  maintain  the 
doctrines  of  materialism  in  their  most  extreme 
and  repulsive  form,  and  formally  deny  the  being 
of  a  God,  and  the  responsibility  of  man.  The 
same  doctrines,  it  is  alleged,  are  inculcated  even 
in  some  schools  for  girls,  which  were  founded 
with  the  professed  design  of  training  them  as 


PREFACE.  Xiil 

librcs  penseiiscSy  and  the  distinctive  feature  of 
which  is,  that  morahty  is  taught  apart  from  re- 
ligion. 

If  there  is  less  of  systematic  and  formal  in- 
culcation of  materialism  in  England,  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  there  is  a  tendency  in  some  of 
our  scientific  men  to  use  language,  which  un- 
questionably has  a  materialistic  coloring.  Do 
not  let  me  be  ranked  with  those  who  dread  or 
are  hostile  to  science,  because  I  say  this.  No 
one  rejoices  more  than  I  do  in  the  progress  of 
all  true  science ;  no  one  more  heartily  honors 
the  men  who  have  devoted  their  lives  to  some 
of  the  highest  pursuits  which  can  occupy  the 
mind  of  man  ;  no  one  is  more  thoroughly  con- 
vinced that  there  is  nothing  in  science  which  can 
be  regarded  with  suspicion,  as  antagonistic  to 
religion  or  to  our  eternal  hopes.  Indeed  I 
deeply  regret  the  language  which  is  sometimes 
used  by  theologians  in  reference  to  science  and 
scientific  men,  and  the  jealousy,  the  distrust,  the 
suspicion,  which  are  thereby  too  often  engender- 
ed between  those  who,  if  they  understood  one 
another  better,  might  become  fellow-workers  in 
a  glorious  cause,  the  most  glorious  to  which  man 
can  devote  himself,  the  cause  of  truth. 

I  hope,  therefore,  I  shall  not  be  misjudged  if 
I  venture  to  offer  some  comment  on  Professor 
Huxley's   paper  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  for 


XIV  .  FEE  FACE. 

last  month  (February  1869)  "On  the  Physical 
Basis  of  life."     I  desire  to  speak  with  all  courtesy 
of  a  writer  for  whose  abilities  and  attainments  I 
entertain  a  very  sincere  respect.     Mr.  Huxley 
says,  that  he  is  "  no  materialist,  but  on  the  con- 
trary believes  materialism  to  inyolve  grave  phi- 
losophical error"  (p.   141)  ;  and  I  am  bound  to 
believe  him.     I  will  go  further  and  say,  that  his 
theory  of  a  protoplasm,  supposing  it  to  be  estab- 
lished, would  not  alarm  me.     I  should  not  feel, 
that  in  accepting  the  description  of  organic  life 
in  the  language  applied  to  physical  forces,  I  was 
necessarily  "  placing  my  feet  on  the  first  rung  of 
a  ladder  which  leads  to  the  antipodes  of  heaven  " 
At  the  same  time  I  must  confess,  that  I  am 
wholly  unable  to  see  where  the  difference  lies 
between  his  language,  at  least  in  some  portions 
of  his  essay,  and  the  language  of  the  avowed 
materialist.     Thus,  for  instance,  he  quotes  with 
approval   the   following   passage   from    one   of 
Hume's  Essays : — 

"  If  we  take  in  hand  any  volume  of  Divinity,  or  School 
Metaphysics,  for  instance,  let  us  ask,  Does  it  contain  any 
abstract  reasoning  concerning  quantity  or  number  ?  No. 
Does  it  contain  any  experimental  reasoning  concer?iing 
matter  of  fact  afid  existence?  No.  Commit  it  then  to 
the  flames  ;  for  it  can  contain  nothing  but  sophistry  and 
illusion." 

And  he  then  adds  : — 


PREFACE.  XV 

"Permit  me  to  enforce  this  most  wise  advice.  Why 
trouble  ourselves  about  matters  of  which,  however  impor- 
tant they  may  be,  we  do  know  nothing  and  can  know 
nothing  ?  We  Jive  in  a  world  which  is  full  of  misery  and 
ignorance,  and  the  plain  duty  of  each  and  all  of  us  is  to 
try  to  make  the  little  corner  he  can  influence  somewhat 
less  miserable  and  somewhat  less  ignorant  than  it  was  be- 
fore he  entered  it.  To  do  this  effectually  it  is  necessary 
to  be  fully  possessed  of  only  two  beliefs  :  the  first,  that 
the  order  of  nature  is  ascertainable  by  our  faculties  to  an 
extent  which  is  practically  unlimited  ;  the  second  that 
our  volition  counts  for  something  as  a  condition  of  the 
course  of  events." 

Is  it  putting  an  unfair  construction  upon  this 
remarkable  paragraph  to  say,  that  Mr.  Huxley 
here  expressly  excludes  everything,  as  a  legiti- 
mate subject  of  enquiry,  but  such  phenomena 
as  can  be  tested  by  experiment  and  observation  } 
Does  he  not  affirm  that  we  do  know,  and  can 
know  nothing  of  matters  which  lie  outside  of 
this  region,  and  in  which  must  certainly  be  in- 
cluded, the  soul,  its  relation  to  God,  and  its 
future  destiny .?  That  in  the  same  breath  he 
should  allow  that  "  matters  may  possibly  be  im- 
portant," about  which  we  not  only  "do  know," 
but  ^^  can  know  nothing,"  is  an  inaccuracy  which 
I  will  not  press.  If  he  had  said  merely, — I,  as 
a  physiologist  or  a  natural  philosopher,  have 
nothing  to  do  with  any  but  physiological  ques- 
tions ;  psychology  does  not  concern  me  : — such 


XVI  r  RE  FACE. 

a  statement  would  have  still  left  it  an  open  ques- 
tion, whether  there  were  truths  ascertainable  by 
other  methods  than  those  of  "abstract"  or  "  ex- 
perimental reasoning."  But  unless  I  misappre- 
hend him,  Professor  Huxley  denies  that  there 
are  any  such  truths,  or  that  if  there  are,  they  can 
be  known.  This  may  not  be  materialism  in 
name,  but  it  is  materialism  to  all  practical  pur- 
pose. And  when  he  continues  on  the  same 
page  :— 

"  In  itself  it  is  of  little  moment  whether  we 
express  the  phenomena  of  matter  in  terms  of 
spirit ;  or  the  phenomena  of  spirit,  in  terms  of 
matter ;  matter  may  be  regarded  as  a  form  of 
thought,  thought  may  be  7'egarded  as  a  property 
of  matter — each  statement  has  a  certain  relative 
truth  :" — the  words  in  italics  are  a  v/ell-known 
materialistic  formula,  and  I  do  not  see  that  Mr. 
Huxley's  qualification  takes  off  its  edge.  The 
latter  part  of  the  paragraph,  which  I  have  quoted 
above,  fills  one  with  astonishment.  Why  is  it 
"a plain  duty"  for  each  one  of  us,  to  do  all  in 
our  power  to  lessen  the  misery  and  the  igno- 
rance, which  exist  in  the  little  corner  we  can 
influence  t  Whence  comes  the  sense  of  duty, 
but  from  the  sense  of  responsibility  }  And  to 
whom  are  we  responsible,  and  what  is  the  con- 
sequence of  neglect  of  duty }  Are  these  ques- 
tions about  which  we  need  not  trouble  ourselves, 


PREFACE.  xvii 

and  to  which  wc  can  have  no  answer  ?  And  is 
it  really  the  fact,  that  in  order  to  exert  ourselves 
effectually  to  banish  ignorance  and  misery,  w'e 
need  but  two  beliefs,  the  belief  "  that  the  order 
of  nature  is  ascertainable  by  our  faculties  to  an 
extent  which  is  practically  unlimited  ; "  and  the 
belief,  that  "our  volition  counts  for  something 
as  a  condition  of  the  course  of  events  "  ?  Are 
these  the  levers  by  which  we  are  to  move  the 
moral  world  ?  Are  these  the  motives  which 
shall  lead,  through  self-sacrifice  and  devotion,  to 
the  regeneration  of  society  ?  It  must  be  con- 
fessed that  these  are  not  the  beliefs  by  which, 
in  past  ages  or  in  our  own  hitherto,  the  great 
work  has  been  accomplished.  It  has  been  ac- 
complished, so  far  as  it  has  been  accomplished 
at  all,  by  men  of  humble  hearts  and  holy  lives, 
who  have  not  counted  their  lives  dear  unto  them- 
selves, whose  motive  has  been,  like  that  of  the 
Apostle,  "  the  love  of-  Christ  constraineth  us," 
and  who,  like  him,  have  been  able  to  look  for- 
ward to  "  a  crown  of  righteousness,"  as  the  re- 
ward of  their  patience,  their  labor,  their  self- 
sacrifice.  History  as  yet  has  not  given  her  ver- 
dict on  the  side  of  Professor  Huxley.  Nor  is 
there  any  obvious  or  plausible  connection  be- 
tween the  "  duty  "  of  which  he  speaks,  and  "  the 
beliefs"  which  are  to  bind  us  to  that  duty. 

I  can  only  repeat,  that  if  I  have  misapprehend- 


XVlll  PREFACE. 

ed  Mr.  Huxley,  I  am  sorry  for  it :  but  it  is  a 
misapprehension  which  I  share  with  many  other 
educated  men,  with  some,  I  may  add,  of  great 
force  and  clearness  of  intellect. 

The  line  taken  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  in 
his  Pi'inciples  of  Psychology  (Part  i.  Chap.  i.  p. 
48)  is  different,  and  perfectly  fair  and  intelligi- 
ble. He  says,  "  It  may  safely  be  affirmed,  that 
Physiology,  which  is  an  interpretation  of  the 
physical  processes  which  go  on  in  organisms 
in  terms  known  to  natural  science,  ceases  to  be 
Physiology  when  it  imports  into  its  interpreta- 
tions any  psychical  factor,  a  factor  which  no  physi- 
cal research  whatever  can  disclose,  or  identify,  or 
get  the  remotest  glimpse  of "  This  is  of  course 
simply  true.  "  But,"  says  Professor  Rolleston 
(who  quotes  this  passage  in  his  Addj'ess  on  Phy- 
siology, p.  23),  "  I  apprehend  if  the  Physiologist 
wishes  to  become  an  Anthropologist  he  must 
qualify  himself  to  judge  both  sets  of  factors. 
There  is  other  science  besides  Physical  Science, 
there  are  other  data  besides  quantifiable  data. 
Schleiden,  a  naturalist  of 'the  very  first  order, 
compares  the  Physical  Philosopher  {Materialis- 
inus  der  netieren  dctUschen  Wissenschaft,  p.  48), 
who  is  not  content  with  ignoring,  without  also 
denying  the  existence  of  a  science  based  on  the 
consciousness,  to  a  man  who,  on  looking  into  his 
purse  and  finding  no  gold  there,  should  not  be 


PREFACE.  xix 

4 

content  with  saying  *  I  find  no  gold  here,'  but 
should  go  further  and  say,  *  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  gold  either  here  or  anywhere  else/  " 
Is  not  something  very  like  this,  the  error  into 
which  Professor  Huxley  has  fallen  ? 

Mr.  Huxley  has  quoted  from  Hume.  Let  me 
quote  the  words  of  a  far  profounder  philosopher. 
This  is  the  admirable  picture  which  Pascal  has 
drawn  of  that  very  state  of  mind  which  is  now 
recommended  to  us  as  wisdom  : — 

"  I  know  not  who  has  placed  me  in  the  world,  nor  what 
the  world  is,  nor  what  I  myself  am.  My  ignorance  on  all 
subjects  is  terrible.  I  do  not  know  what  my  body  is,  or 
my  senses,  or  my  soul,  and  that  part  of  myself  which  thinks 
what  I  utter,  which  reflects  on  everything,  and  on  itself. 
and  has  no  better  knowledge  of  itself  than  of  all  the  rest.  I 
behold  those  appalling  depths  of  the  universe  which  shut 
me  in ;  and  I  find  myself  tied  to  a  corner  of  that  vast 
space,  without  knowing  why  I  am  placed  in  this  spot, 
rather  than  in  another,  nor  why  the  little  moment  which  is 
given  me  to  live,  has  been  assigned  to  me  at  this  particular 
point,  rather  than  any  other  in  the  whole  of  that  eternity 
which  has  preceded  me,  and  the  whole  of  that  eternity 
which  is  to  follow.  I  see  nothing  but  infinities  on  all  sides 
which  enclose  me  like  an  atom,  and  like  a  shadow  which 
abideth  but  an  instant  and  returneth  not.  All  that  I  know 
is  that  I  must  shortly  die  ;  but  that  of  which  I  am  most 
ignorant,  is  that  very  death  from  which  I  cannot  escape. 

"As  I  know  not  whence  I  come,  so  I  know  not  whither 
I  go  ;  and  I  know  only  that  when  I  leave  this  world,  I 
fall  for  ever,  either  into  annihilation  or  into  the  hands  of 
an  angry  God,  without  knowing  to  which  of  these  two 


XX  niEFACE, 

conditions  I  am  for  ever  condemned.  Behold  my  state, 
full  of  misery,  of  weakness,  of  obscurity.  And  from  all 
this  I  conclude,  that  I  ought  to  pass  all  the  days  of  my 
life  without  a  moment's  reflection  on  that  which  shall  be- 
fall me.  Perchance  I  might  find  some  ray  of  light  to 
guide  me  in  my  doubts  ;  but  I  will  not  take  the  trouble, 
I  will  not  take  a  single  step  to  seek  it ;  and  after  treating 
with  contempt  those  who  do  engage  in  the  task,  I  will  go 
without  forethought  and  without  fear  to  encounter  so  great 
an  event,  and  suffer  myself  to  be  led  softly  to  death  in  ut- 
ter uncertainty  of  what  shall  be  my  condition  to  all  eter- 
nity." "  How  can  a  reasonable  man,"  says  Pascal, 
"entertain  thoughts  such  as  these?"  "Nothing  is  so 
important  to  a  man  as  his  condition  ;  nothing  is  so  avv'ful 
for  him  as  eternity  ;  and  that  he  should  be  found  indiffe- 
rent to  the  loss  of  his  being  and  to  the  peril  of  an  eternity 
of  miseries,  is  certainly  not  natural.  The  merest  trifles 
will  stir  a  man  to  rage  and  despair  ;  and  yet  he  can  con- 
template the  loss  of  everything  by  death  without  an  emo- 
tion. It  is  a  prodigy  to  see  in  one  and  the  same  heart, 
at  one  and  the  same  time,  this  sensibility  to  trifles,  and 
this  insensibility  to  matters  of  the  weightiest  import.  It 
is  an  incomprehensible,  preternatural  infatuation,  which 
must  be  due  to  some  cause  of  irresistible  force."  {Pen- 
sSes,  pp.  135 — 137,  ed.  Havet.) 

Yes,  whatever  Hume  and  those  who  think 
with  him  may  say,  we  cannot  escape  from  the 
thought,  the  anxious  and  earnest  investigation, 
of  subjects  such  as  these.  Nor  are  we  doomed 
only  to  barren  and  fruitless  speculation.  Not 
only  are  there  other  truths  than  those  which 
fall  within  the  province  of  "  abstract "  or  ''  experi- 


PREFACE,  xxi 

mental  reasoning,"  not  only  are  there  higher 
truths,  and  infinitely  more  important,  but  they 
are  more  real,  more  certainly  ascertainable,  than 
any  facts  in  the  material  world.  It  is  not  only 
the  things  we  see,  and  hear,  and  touch,  of  which 
we  can  attain  to  any  knowledge.  The  soul,  God, 
eternity — these  realities  lighted  up  for  us  by  the 
light  which  falls  on  them  from  the  words  and  the 
life  of  Christ,  and  borne  witness  to  by  the  voices, 
accordant  here,  wherever  else  they  may  difter, 
of  the  purest,  and  the  noblest,  and  the  truest  of 
our  race — men,  many  of  them  who  stand  fore- 
most in  the  ranks  of  intellectual  distinction,  as 
well  as  great  with  moral  greatness — are  realities 
which  shall  last  when.  "  the  sun  himself  shall 
die." 

*'  Whether  we  be  young  or  old, 
Our  destiny,  our  being's  heart  and  home. 
Is  with  infinity,  and  only  there  : 
With  hope  it  is,  hope  that  can  never  die 
Effort  and  expectation  and  desire. 
And  something  evermore  about  to  be." 

Wordsworth,  T/ie  Prelude. 

St.  David's  College,  Lamteter, 
JlLveh  I,  1S59. 


LECTURE   L 

THE  FUTURE  LIFE. 
ECCLESIASTES    III.    1 8 22. 

/  said  ill  mine  heart  conceniiiig  the  estate  of  the  sons  of 
uien^  that  God  might  manifest  thejn,  and  that  they 
7night  see  that  they  themselves  are  beasts.  For  that 
which  befalleth  the  sons  of  iiien  befalleth  beasts ;  even 
one  thing  befalleth  them  :  as  the  onedieth,  so  dieth  the 
other ;  yea,  they  have  all  one  breath;  so  that  a  man 
hath  no  pre-eniinence  above  a  beast :  for  all  is  vanity. 
All  go  tinto  one  place  J  all  are  of  the  dust,  and  all  turn 
to  dnst  again.  Who  knozueth  the  spirit  of  man  that 
goeth  iipzua7'dj  and  the  spirit  of  the  beast  that  goeth 
downivard  to  the  earth  ?  Wherefore  I  perceive  that 
there  is  nothing  better',  than  that  a  man  should  rejoice 
in  his  01071  works j  for  that  is  his  portion  :  for  who 
shall  bring  him  to  see  what  shall  be  after  him  ? 

There  are  some  questions  which  can  never 
lose  their  interest,  and  which  from  time  to  time 
present  themselves  with  fresh  force  and  fascina- 
tion. They  are  ever  old  and  yet  ever  new ; 
old  as  the  heart  of  man  and  yet  new  as  the  dawn 
of  infancy.  Men  have  thought  they  have  found 
a  solution,  or  have  abandoned  them  in  despair, 


4  nniORTALITY. 

and  yet  they  start  up  and  confront  us  again,  as 
if  they  had  never  gained  attention,  and  as  if  no 
answer  had  been  given  to  them.  A  new  age, 
with  new  needs  and  a  new  science,  refuses  to 
accept  the  solution  of  a  former  age,  or  with  fresh 
hope  and  irrepressible  eagerness  insists  that  the 
problem,  which  baffled  the  thinkers  of  the  past, 
is  not  beyond  the  reach  of  the  thinkers  of  the 
present.  Among  these  questions,  none  possesses 
a  more  universal,  a  more  commanding  interest, 
than  the  question  of  a  Future  Life. 

"  Who  knoweth  whether  the  spirit  of  man  go- 
eth  upward,  and  whether  the  spirit  of  the  beast 
goeth  downward  to  the  earth  .'' "  This  was  the 
question  wrung  from  the  Preacher  in  the  bitter- 
ness of  his  thoughts,  as  in  the  absence  of  any 
clear  and  positive  revelation  concerning  the  fu- 
ture, he  tried  to  read  the  riddle  of  the  world.  A 
selfish  life  had  darkened  his  heart,  and  brought 
him  to  the  verge  of  a  sceptical  philosophy.  He 
was  weary  of  the  world,  weary  of  the  injustice 
which  he  beheld,  and,  ready  to  accept  the  con- 
clusion that  there  was  no  moral  Governor  of  the 
Universe,  he  was  ready  also  to  accept  the  con- 
clusion that  man  perished  like  the  beasts.  And 
hence  he  took  refuge  inevitably  in  that  doctrine 
which  might  have  come  from  the  mouth  of  Epi- 
curus :  "  Wherefore  I  perceive  that  there  is  noth- 
ing better,  than  that  a  man  should  rejoice  in  his 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  5 

own  works  ;  for  that  is  his  portion :  for  who 
knoweth  what  shall  be  after  him  ? "  Happily 
the  Preacher  did  not  rest  in  this  solution  of  the 
problem.  Happily  God  led  him  through  the 
painful  discipline  of  life,  through  much  disap- 
pointment and  much  sadness  of  heart  to  a  nobler 
faith.  Happily  we  see  him  emerging  from  that 
tangled  forest  in  which  he  had  so  long  wandered, 
torn  by  its  thickets,  and  poisoned  by  its  miasma, 
and  bitten  by  its  deadly  snakes,  and  coming  forth 
into  the  light  of  God's  love  and  truth,  and  look- 
ing with  calm  eye  on  death,  and  even  beyond 
death,  and  teaching  to  others  that  lesson  of  high- 
est wisdom  which  he  had  learnt  himself:  "  Fear 
God  and  keep  His  commandments,  for  this  is 
the  whole  of  man.  For  God  shall  bring  every 
w^ork  into  judgment  with  every  secret  thing 
whether  it  be  good  or  bad." 

The  question  of  the  Preacher  has  since  then 
been  put  again  and  again.  Men  are  never  weary 
of  asking  it,  never  weary  of  seeking  an  answer. 
Even  in  this  age,  with  its  singularly  positive 
spirit,  with  its  utilitarian  tendencies,  this  question 
is  so  far  from  being  thrust  aside,  that  it  presents 
itself  in  quarters  where  we  should  least  expect 
it.  Even  in  this  age,  which  has  been  termed 
*'  the  golden  age  of  the  exact  sciences,  and  of 
industry,  and  the  iron  age  of  metaphysics,"*  when 

*  E.  Saisset. 


6  IMMORTALITY, 

men  seem  to  have  grown  weary  of  abstract  spec- 
ulations, are  almost  afraid  to  think,  and  are  ab- 
sorbed in  the  study  of  facts,  material  results,  the 
practical  applications  of  science,  still  the  shadow 
of  that  other  world  of  mystery  haunts  them.  It 
"  broods  o'er  them  like  the  Day,  a  master  o'er  a 
slave,"  "  a  Presence  which  is  not  to  be  put  by." 
They  cannot  escape  from  it.  The  mind  most 
averse  to  what  it  considers  speculative  and  there- 
fore fruitless  researches,  the  heart  most  engrossed 
in  the  pursuit  of  earthly  good,  will  have  its  mo- 
ments of  awakening,  its  hours  of  weariness  and 
dissatisfaction,  when  some  whisper  of  these 
strange  problems  will  reach  it.  What  am  I .'' 
Whence  came  r.-*  Whither  am  I  going.''  What 
is  the  end  which  awaits  me  "^ 

These  questions,  arising  as  it  were  spontane- 
ously, cannot  but  suggest  others  as  the  result 
of  reflection.  What  is  my  body,  that  admirable 
but  fragile  machine  which  the  slightest  shock 
breaks  to  atoms  .''  Organized  matter, — the  sub- 
ject of  hourly  incessant  changes,  through  which, 
as  through  a  sieve,  there  passes  an  ever-renewed 
wave  of  changing  particles.  Must  there  not  then, 
if  my  body  is  to  keep  the  form  which  constitutes 
it,  must  there  not  be  in  it  something  which  has 
the  power  to  hold  it  together,  some  hidden  force, 
some  principle  of  life  1  And  then  besides  my 
organic  life,  do  I  not  perceive  within  me  some- 


TUE  FUTURE  LIFE.  J 

thing  which  reasons,  which  suffers,  \Yhich  hopes, 
which  rejoices,  which  wills,  which  wills  not,  a 
thought,  a  soul  ?  How  marvellous  is  my  nature  ! 
A  moment  since,  when  I  looked  only  at  my 
body,  I  thought  myself  a  being  of  wonderful  sim- 
plicity :  now  I  see  in  myself  two  beings — per- 
haps three  ;  first  my  body,  then  the  animal  life, 
and  then  beyond  that  life,  another  life  more  mys- 
terious still.  What  am  I  then  ?  A  double  or  tri- 
ple being  ?  or  is  this  complication  only  apparent, 
thought  being  only  a  superior  degree  of  life, 
and  life  only  a  property  of  organized  matters* 

When  once  such  questions  are  proposed,  it  is 
difficult  to  set  them  aside.  For  if  I  am  nothing 
but  a  body  analogous  to  those  which  I  see  around 
me,  I  shall  have  the  end  of  the  worm  I  crush,  of 
the  grass  which  I  tread  beneath  my  feet.  A 
child  of  the  dust,  when  I  give  back  my  bones  to 
the  dust,  I  shall  give  back  to  it  all  that  I  am. 
Then  the  philosophy  of  despair  is  all  that  is  left 
to  me  ;  "  That  which  befalleth  man  befalleth 
beasts  ;  as  the  one  dieth,  so  dieth  the  other." 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  in  me  a  principle 
independent  of  the  body,  then  that  is  a  true  phi- 
losophy which  says  that  "  man  is  not  a  plant  of 
the  earth,  but  a  plant  of  heaven  "  ( (pvrov  ova  ey- 
yetov,  oc/l/l'  ovpUviov),  and  then  the  present  life, 
which  but  now  was  everything  to  me,  is  but  a 


8  nnWRTALITY. 

day,  an  hour,  a  moment,  in  sight  of  the  eternity 
which  awaits  me. 

It  is  obvious  tliat  our  whole  hfe  must  take  a 
coloring  from  the  conclusion  at  which  we  arrive. 
It  is  obvious  that  this  is  no  merely  theoretical 
question,  however  men  may  be  disposed  to  treat 
it.  It  enters  into  the  very  heart  of  our  being. 
If  we  are  but  children  of  the  dust  doomed  to  re- 
turn to  the  dust,  then  let  this  world  absorb  our 
cares  and  bound  our  thoughts.  If  we  are  heirs 
of  immortality,  then  let  our  life  here  be  guided 
by  those  principles  and  shaped  by  those  ends 
which  will  best  fit  us  for  the  life  to  come. 

I  propose,  in  this  course  of  Lectures,  to  exam- 
ine some  of  the  grounds  on  which  our  hope  of 
Immortality  rests :  I  propose  to  show,  that  in 
Christ  only  and  the  Revelation  of  Christ  is  to  be 
found  the  answer  to  the  question  of  the  text. 
With  this  object  in  view,  I  shall  first  of  all  glance 
at  some  of  the  attempts,  which  have  recently 
been  made,  to  answer  the  question,  either  in  a 
sense  adverse  to  Christianity,  or  without  any 
recognition  of  its  claims.  I  shall  then  review 
the  history  of  belief,  so  far  as  this  doctrine  is 
concerned,  first  among  the  Pagans  and  next 
among  the  Jews.  And,  lastly,  I  shall  hope  to 
show  that  whereas,  apart  from  Christianity,  we 
are  left  only  to  dim  guesses  and  uncertain  con- 
jectures, Christ  Jesus  has  "  brought  life  and  im- 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  9 

mortality  to  light,"  and  has  met  and  satisfied  the 
deep  instincts  of  the  human  heart,  and  the  hopes 
of  the  world. 

It  will  indeed  be  impossible  to  offer  more  than 
the  outline  of  so  vast  a  subject  in  the  space  al- 
lotted to  these  Lectures.  I  cannot  doubt  that  I 
am  speaking  in  the  presence  of  some  who  will 
discover  defects  of  knowledge  or  of  method  in 
what  I  shall  advance.  But  as  they  will  also  know 
better  than  others,  how  widely  attempts  have 
been  made,  both  in  Germany  and  in  France, 
on  the  one  hand,  to  substitute  a  pantheistic  ab- 
sorption for  the  hope  of  a  personal  immortality, 
and  on  the  other  hand,  to  overthrow  all  belief  in 
the  existence  of  the  soul  after  death  ;  and  how 
such  doctrines  have  been  welcomed  and  propa- 
gated, in  our  own  country,  by  men  who  claim  to 
be  thinkers  and  philosophers,  they  will  feel  that 
some  attempt  to  grapple  with  this  question  is  not 
out  of  place,  and  they  will  show  some  indulgence 
to  what  does  not  profess  to  be  more  than  a  frag- 
mentary contribution  to  the  subject. 

"  Who  knoweth  whether  the  spirit  of  man 
goeth  upward,  and  whether  the  spirit  of  the  beast 
goeth  downward  to  the  earth  }  "*  Let  us  glance 
at  some  of  the  answers  which,  in  our  own  day, 


*  I  have  adopted  what  I  believe  to  be  the  better  rendering  of 
the  verse. 


lO  niMORTAUTr. 

have  been  given  to  this  question.  I  shall  select 
three  by  way  of  illustration  ;  that  of  the  Mate- 
rialist, that  of  the  Pantheist,  and  that  of  the  so- 
called  Spiritualist,  who  rejects  revelation. 

I.  There  is,  first,  the  answer  of  the  Material- 
ist, who  tells  you  that  beyond  the  grave  there  is 
nothing,  that  this  life  is  all.  He  maintains  that 
his  philosophy  must  be  true,  because  it  is  based 
entirely  upon  facts.  He  says  that  he  has  laid 
bare  the  secrets  of  man's  nature,  and  that  its 
component  parts  are  the  same  as  the  component 
parts  of  all  other  objects  in  the  universe.  He 
assures  you  that  there  are  but  two  things  in  the 
world,  matter  and  force,  and  that  neither  of  these 
can  exist  apart  from  the  other.  "  No  force  with- 
out matter,  and  no  matter  without  force  ;  "*  this 
is  the  first  brief  and  pregnant  and  comprehen- 
sive axiom  of  materialism.  "  Forces,"  says  an 
eminent  physiologist,  f  "  are  not  harnessed  to 
matter  as  horses  are  to  a  chariot,  which  you  can 
put  in  or  take  out  at  pleasure."  Each  material 
molecule  has  its  inherent  properties,  from  which 
it  can  never  be  separated.  "  A  particle  of  iron 
is  the  same  thing  whether  it  traverse  the  universe 
in  the  aerolite,  or  roll  in  thunder  on  the  railroad, 

*  BUchner,  ICrafl  ttnd  Staff. 

t  Du  Bois-Reymond,  quoted  by  Buchner.     See  also  P.  Janet, 
Le  Materiallsme  Contemporain,  p.  20. 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  II 

or  circulate  in  the  blood-globule  in  the  temples 
of  a  poet."  Hence  it  follows  that  the  idea  of  a 
creative  force,  separate  from  matter,  governing 
it  according  to  fixed  laws,  is  a  pure  abstraction. 
To  maintain  the  existence  of  such  a  force  is  to 
transform  an  occult  quality  into  an  absolute  be- 
ing. Matter  and  force  are  inseparable ;  matter 
and  force  have  existed  from  all  eternity  ;  matter 
and  force  constitute  the  universe,  and  constitute 
man. 

This  is  all  that  there  is  in  man,  the  material 
elements  of  which  his  body  is  composed,  and  the 
forces  which  have  helped  to  build  up  that  body. 
What  then,  according  to  this  theory,  is  the  soul  1 
It  is  an  organic  function  of  the  body,  whose  seat 
is  in  the  brain.  Rejecting  the  monstrous  and 
self-contradictory  theory  of  some  earlier  mate- 
rialists,* according  to  which  thought  is  a  secre- 
tion of  the  brain,  later  physiologists  prefer  to  say 
that  thought  is  the  action  of  the  brain  :  and  the 
action  of  the  steam-engine  must  not  be  con- 
founded with  the  steam  which  puts  the  engine 
in  motion.  Thought  is  the  resultant  of  all  the 
forces  united  in  the  brain.  This  resultant  can- 
not be  seen  ;  it  is,  according  to  all  appearance, 


*  As  for  instance  Cabanis.  The  abuse  of  the  term  "  secre- 
tion "  is  obvious.  For  a  refutation  of  this  theory  see  E.  Naville, 
La  Vie  Etenielle,  p-  65. 


1 2  nnioR  talitj:^ 

but  the  effect  of  nervous  electricity.  "  There  is 
the  same  relation,"  says  one  writer,  "  between 
thought  and  the  electric  vibrations  of  the  fila- 
ments of  the  brain  as  between  color  and  the  vi- 
brations of  the  ether."  Finally,  the  whole  doc- 
trine has  been  summed  up  in  these  v/ords — 
"  Thought  is  a  movement  of  matter."*  In  short, 
the  thesis  of  materialism  is  this,  that  beyond 
matter  and  the  laws  of  matter  there  is  nothing, 
and  that  consequently  mechanics,  chemistry,  phy- 
siology, suffice  to  explain  all  phenomena,  the 
production  of  thought  as  well  as  the  production 
of  the  flame  of  a  candle,  the  sentiments  of  the 
human  heart  as  well  as  the  color  and  weight  of 
a  stone  or  a  tree. 

A  conclusion  such  as  this,  which  breaks  down 
the  eternal  barriers  between  mind  and  matter, 
and  which  boldly  says  they  are  one,  ought  not 
to  be  received  without  the  strictest  proof.  And 
what  is  the  proof  which  is  offered  }  It  is  of  this 
kind.  The  brain  is  the.  seat  and  the  organ  of 
thought ;  wherever  we  find  a  brain,  there  we 
find  a  thinking  being,  or  one,  at  least,  ni  some 
degree  intelligent.  Wherever  the  brain  is  want- 
ing, intelligence  and  thought  are  equally  want- 
ing. There  is,  moreover,  a  constant  ratio  be- 
tween the  development  of  the  brain  and  the  de- 

*  IMoleschott. 


TUE  FUTURE  LIFE.  •      1 3 

veloi^ment  of  the  mind.  They  increase  and 
decrease  together ;  what  affects  the  one,  affects 
the  other  also.  Age,  disease,  the  difference  of 
the  sexes,  have  an  exactly  corresponding  influ- 
ence upon  the  brain  and  upon  the  mind.  There 
is  an  invariable  relation  between  the  brain,  which 
is  the  organ  of  thought,  and  the  thought  itself, 
and  therefore  the  brain  is  the  cause  of  thought.* 
But,  unfortunately  for  this  conclusion,  not  one 
of  the  three  propositions  on  which  it  rests  can 
be  said  to  be  proved.  The  last  is  certainly  con- 
tested by  some  of  the  most  eminent  physiolo- 
gists.! Science  has  yet  vast  strides  to  make 
before  it  can  establish  with  certainty  the  rela- 
tion between  the  brain  and  thought.  Some  of 
the  foremost  of  modern  authorities  declare  that 
the  physiology  of  the  brain  is  yet  in  its  infancy,  J 
and  that  the  relations  between  the  brain  and 
thought  are  absolutely  unknown.  Who  knows 
what  takes  place  in  the  nervous  extremities, 
along  the  nerves,  and  in  the  substance  of  the 
brain,  when  we  receive,  for  instance,  the  impres- 


*  See  P.  Janet,  Le  Mater.  Coiitemp.  pp.  30,  31   and  116,  117. 

t  As  for  instance  Lelut,  La  Physiologic  de  la  Pensee,  and  by 
Leuret  and  Gratiolet,  V Anatomic  Comparec  du  Systhnc  Ner- 
veux.     See  P.  Janet,  as  above. 

X  Even  the  differences  of  structure  between  the  brain  of  man 
and  that  of  the  lower  animals  is  still  a  subject  of  dispute.  Ac- 
cording to  Bischoff,  *'ovir  knowledge  of  the  finer  structural  re- 


14       •  niMORTALITY. 

sion  of  light  or  that  of  sound  ?  Who  knows 
what  the  condition  of  the  brain  is  at  the  moment 
when  the  will  becomes  the  principle  of  a  mo- 
ment ?  But  suppose  you  could  discover  this. 
Suppose  you  could  ascertain  the  last  fact  in  the 
nervous  system  in  the  order  of  impressions,  and 
the  first  fact  in  the  nervous  system  in  the  or- 
der of  the  will.  Suppose  that  long  and  patient 
study  shall  at  last  have  discovered  the  secret, 
shall  at  last  have  led  to  the  knowledge  that  to  a 
particular  sentiment,  a  particular  thought,  a  par- 
ticular act  of  the  will,  there  corresponds  such  a 
vibration  of  the  fibres,  such  a  discharge  of  elec- 
tricity, such  a  combination  of  phosphorus.  What 
follows  .^  Would  such  a  result  of  the  science  be 
of  any  service  to  materialism  }  Assuredly  not. 
All  that  science  will  have  done  in  that  case,  will 
be  to  have  established  in  detail  the  close  and  in- 
timate union  of  two  orders  of  phenomena  in  their 
nature  absolutely  unlike.  And  the  conclusion  of 
materialism  will  be — these  phenomena  are  linked 
together  :  therefore  they  are  of  the  same  nature. 
Thought,  feeling,  will,  are  always  in   harmony 


lations  and  the  chemical  composition  of  the  brain  is  still  very- 
imperfect."  A  remark  which  however  he  quaUfies  by  saying, 
that  "much  as  there  is  marvellous  and  mysterious  in  the  physi- 
cal life  of  men  and  beasts,  the  structure  of  the  brain  contains 
quite  as  many  marvels  and  mysteries."  Ulrici,  Goti  ttnd  der 
McJisch.  I.  73. 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  1 5 

with  a  given  condition  of  the  material  organs  ; 
therefore  thought,  feehng,  will,  are  properties  or 
products  of  matter.  The  sophism  is  always  the 
same.  It  consists  in  saying  :  these  facts  corre- 
spond to  one  another,  they  are  closely  united, 
therefore  there  are  not  two  facts,  there  is  only 
one.*  It  is  like  saying  the  magnetic  force  is  al- 
ways found  in  the  loacfstone  ;  therefore  the  mag- 
netic force  is  the  product  of  the  loadstone.  Ma- 
terialism, when  it  identifies  the  manifestations 
of  the  soul  with  the  phenomena  of  the  body, 
flings  a  rope  across  the  chasm,  and  then  declares 
that  the  ch^sm  no  longer  exists. 

And  as  the  materialist  takes  for  granted  in  his 
own  science  what  he  has  to  prove,  and  draws  in- 
ferences which  are  not  warrantable,  if  his  pre- 
mises were  granted,  so  he  altogether  shuts  his 
eyes  to  those  other  facts,  with  which  neither  the 
anatomist's  knife,  nor  the  chemist's  crucible  can 
deal.  If  you  attempt  to  confront  him  with  the 
inner  facts  of  human  nature,  with  the  thoughts 
and  anticipations  of  the  human  heart,  he  will  tell 
you  calmly  these  form  no  part  of  his  study,  that 
either  a  thing  is  reconcilable  with  reason  and 
experience  and  then  it  is  true,  or  it  is  not  so  re- 
concilable and  then  it  is  false  ;  it  can  find  no  place 

*  E.  Naville,  La  Vic  EterneUe,  pp.  63—6;  and  see  also  Ap- 
pendix, Note  A. 


1 6  nniOR  TALITY. 

in  any  system  of  philosophy.  Insist  on  it  that 
there  is  a  deep  inextinguishable  desire  of  immor- 
tality in  the  human  heart,  and  that  the  very 
thought  of  annihilation  is  repugnant  to  man  ; 
and  he  will  reply — I  quote  words  actually  used — 
that  the  thought  of  an  everlasting  life  is  infinite- 
ly more  terrible,  that  for  himself  he  does  not 
hesitate  for  an  instant  to  prefer  everlasting  anni- 
hilation to  everlasting  life.*  Such  a  perpetuity 
of  existence,  such  an  impossibility  of  dying  is  the 
most  awful  thing  the  human  imagination  can  in- 
vent : — if  you  would  picture  it  to  yourself  in  all 
its  awfulness,  you  have  only  to  think  of  it  as  it 
has  been  conceived  and  portrayed  in  the  story 
of  the  never-dying,  ever-wandering  Jew.  And, 
indeed,  on  his  principles  he  is  right,  for  he  who 
denies  the  Being  of  a  God  may  well  shudder  at 
the  thought  of  immortality  ;  for,  think  for  a  mo- 
ment of  a  community  of  beings,  like  ourselves, 
each  one  continuing  for  ever,  each  one  following 
his  own  selfish  path,  each  one  without  guide  or 
governor,  each  one  the  blind  slave  of  his  own 
caprice,  or  humor,  or  desperate  desire  ;  think  of 
human  pride  and  passion  and  hate  suffered  to 
prolong  their  malignant  being  to  all  eternity,  un- 
checked and  unrestrained.  Who  does  not  feel 
that  annihilation  is  indeed  to  be  courted,  rather 

*  Biicliner,  Kraft  iind  Stoff,  p.  212. 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  I  7 

than  immortality  without  God  ?  If,  urging  that 
moral  argument  which  has  weighed  with  so 
many  pure  and  noble  thinkers,  you  say  that  we 
need,  that  we  imperatively  require,  another  world 
to  redress  the  inequalities  of  this  life,  a  world 
Avhere  the  mysteries  which  haunt  and  perplex 
us  now  shall  receive  their  solution  ;  the  answer 
of  the  materialist  is,  that  it  may  be  we  are  sur- 
rounded with  mystery,  it  may  be  that  it  would 
be  delightful  if  in  heaven,  as  in  the  last  act  of 
'  some  moving  drama,  all  the  discords  of  earth 
should  be  resolved  into  some  sweet  tender  soul- 
subduing  harmony,  all  the  perplexities  and  rid- 
dles of  life  find  their  adequate  solution ;  but 
science  has  nothing  to  do  with  what  may  be,  her 
business  lies  only  with  what  is,  and  that  facts 
numerous  and  unquestionable  drive  us  to  the 
conclusion  that  man  perishes  like  the  beast.* 
Speak  to  him  of  duty,  of  saintly  devotion,  of 
heroic  self-sacrifice,  of  love,  so  pure,  so  high, 
so  heavenly,  that  it  gives  itself  in  spite  of  base- 
ness and  treachery,  covering  all  sins  with  its 
own  glory  and  asking  no  return  ;  tell  him  of 
the  might  of  genius  which  creates  an  ideal 
world,  and  the  might  of  philanthropy  which  re- 
creates the  moral  world,  and  ask  him  if  he  be- 
lieves that  such  things  are  no  more  than  the 

*  So  for  instance,  Biichner,  Kraft  uiid  StoJ)\ 


iS  nniORTALITY. 

dance  of  insects  in  the  dying  day,  and  he  will 
wonder  tliat  you  should  see  in  these  any  evi- 
dence that  the  soul  comes  from  God,  and  re- 
turns to  God  ;  they  are  but  so  many  pulsations 
of  the  material  machine,  to  be  quenched  with  it, 
when  it  falls  to  dust,  in  everlasting  night.  And 
if  you  enquire  what  hope  is  left  you  in  the  strug- 
gle of  life,  he  will  perhaps  reply,  that  duty  is  its 
own  reward,  that  your  best  hope  is  in  the  pro- 
gress of  the  race,  and  he  will  give  you  the  assur- 
ance that  when  you  die  there  is  nothing  lost  to 
the  universe,  not  one  particle  of  the  elements  of 
which  your  body  was  composed,  not  one  of  the 
forces  w'hich  built  it  up.  Matter  and  force  may 
be  transmuted,  but  they  cannot  perish- ;  and 
with  solemn  irony  he  will  proclaim  to.  you  this 
gospel  of  consolation,  that  neither  matter  nor 
force  can  die,  and  bid  you  find  there  the  immor- 
tality for  which  you  seek.  The  answer  which 
the  t'reacher  gave  to  his  own  heart,  in  the  hour 
of  his  scepticism  and  despondency,  is  the  only 
true  and  satisfactory  answer  to  man's  self-tor- 
turing spirit :  "  Man  hath  no  pre-eminence  above 
the  beast.  As  the  one  dieth,  so  dieth  the  other. 
All  are  of  the  dust,  and  all  turn  to  dust  again." 

Entrenched  within  these  double  lines,  of  in- 
ferences too  hastily  drawn  from  one  class  of  facts, 
and  of  absolute  blindness  to  another  class  of 
facts.  Materialism  is  hard  to  be  dislodged.     Hap- 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE. 


19 


pily,  however,  such  a  theory  of  human  nature 
carries  with  it  its  own  condemnation.  We 
need  not  the  Hght  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ,  my  brethren,  to  show  us  its  falseness. 
The  facts  of  man's  nature  are  a  witness  against 
it,  the  constitution  of  the  world  is  a  witness 
against  it.  And  they  must  indeed  be  in  love 
with  death,  who  can  look  without  shrinking  on 
the  annihilation  which  is  thus  offered  to  us  as 
our  only  hope.  Such  a  creed  assuredly  will  never 
be  popular.  The  heart  of  man  and  the  con- 
science of  man  v;ill  raise  their  everlasting  jDro- 
test  against  this  cruel  degradation  ;  the  natural 
majesty  of  man  lifts  itself  up,  as  if  with  a  sense 
of  wrong  and  insult,  when  you  thus  strip  the 
crown  from  its  head,  and  in  spite  of  all  your  ef- 
forts to  debase  and  dethrone  it,  asserts  its  high 
lineage  as  an  heir  of  immortality. 

II.  But  besides  the  answer  of  the  Materialist, 
another  answer  has  been  given  to  the  question 
of  the  Preacher  which  at  first  sight  seems  far 
more  hopeful,  far  more  attractive.  For  many 
minds  it  unquestionably  possesses  a  peculiar 
fascination.  This  is  the  answer  of  Pantheism. 
Pantheism  does  not  rob  us  of  one  part  of  our  na- 
ture. Pantheism  acknowledges  the  rights  and 
the  dignity  of  the  human  soul.  It  assures  you 
that  the  soul  came  from  God  and  returns  to  God. 
But  as  it  does  not  acknowledge  a  Personal  God,  so 


20  IMMORTALITY. 

it  does  not  truly  recognize  a  personal  soul.  It 
maintains  that  there  is  in  each  of  us  that  divine 
thing  which  cannot  die,  but  that  divine  thing  is 
but  a  portion  of  the  great  informing,  self-evolving 
Spirit.  Separated  for  a  moment  from  the  whole, 
the  individual  phenomenon  returns  to  the  whole. 
According  to  the  well-known  figure  of  the  East- 
ern poet,  the  drop  from  the  Fountain  of  Life, 
which  has  been  enshrined  in  the  frail  crystal 
globe,  only  exists,  as  long  as  that  globe  exists, 
as  a  separate  drop.  When  that  globe  is  shat- 
tered, it  will  mingle  again  with  the  Fountain 
whence  it  came. 

This  is  the  immortality  of  Pantheism,  this  is 
the  eternal  life  which  it  offers.  The  soul  does 
not  die,  the  spirit  does  not  perish,  the  separate 
drop  does  but  mingle  with  its  native  ocean. 
Nothing  is  lost.  But  is  it  the  fact  that  nothing 
is  lost  ?  Is  the  loss  of  the  individual  conscious- 
ness no  loss  ?  Is  the  extinction  of  personality 
nothing  .'*  On  the  contrary,  is  not  everything 
involved  in  this  }  The  substance,  the  metaphy- 
sical base  of  my  being  you  tell  me  remains,  it  is 
only  my  separate  existence  which  has  come  to  an 
jend.  But  if  the  life  of  consciousness,  of  thought, 
of  feeling,  if  that  which  distinguished  me  from 
others  is  gone,  swallowed  up  in  the  universal, 
unconscious,  undistinguishable  spirit-sea,  in  what 
respect  does  this  differ  from  annihilation  and 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  21 

death  ?  For  if  it  be  true,  *  I  think,  therefore  I 
am/  it  must  also  be  true,  '  I  cease  to  think,  there- 
fore I  cease  to  be.'  What  reparation  do  you 
make,  what  consolation  do  you  offer,  when  you 
assure  me  that  my  substance  cannot  perish  ? 
IJy  substance  ?  /have  ceased  to  be,  I  have  no 
substance  any  longer.  You  hold  out  to  me  the 
fair  vision  of  immortal  life.  But  what  life  .'* 
Whose  life  .'*  Not  my  life,  for  it  is  no  longer 
mine.  I  and  my  personal  history  come  to  an 
end  with  death.  The  consciousness  at  least  of 
all  I  have  been  is  swept  away.  What  once  be- 
longed to  me  may  remain,  but  it  remains  in  a 
form  which  I  am  no  longer  able  to  recognize,  in 
a  form  which  does  not  possess  even  a  shadowy 
outline  of  being,  in  a  form  for  which  I  am  unable 
to  feel  even  one  passing  emotion  of  interest.* 

*  By  precisely  the  same  method  of  reasoning  the  immortality 
of  the  body  might  be  made  out.  For  when  the  body  perishes 
and  turns  to  its  dust,  not  a  single  particle  of  it  is  lost.  The  sub- 
stance is  not  destroyed ;  it  merely  returns  back  to  the  mass 
from  which  it  was  taken,  earth  to  earth,  dust  to  dust,  and 
a  new  life  springs  from  the  mouldering  carcase.  But  would 
it  be  reasonable  therefore  to  maintain  that  the  body  is  immortal  ? 
Is  this  return  of  the  constituent  particles  of  the  body  to  the 
great  mass  of  universal  matter  anything  else  but  death  ?  Can 
I  persuade  myself  that  my  body  does  not  perish  because  every 
particle  of  it  remains,  though  imder  other  conditions,  and  in  dif- 
ferent forms  of  combination  ?  If  any  one  can  find  a  consolation 
in  such  a  reflection,  he  may  perhaps  console  himself  with  the 
thought  that  his  soul  is  immortal,  though  it  is  lost  and  swallowed 
up  in  the  vast  ocean  of  universal  soul. 


2  2  nniOHTALITi' 

This  abstract  notion  of  immortality,  even  if  it 
v/ere  possible,  is  not  worth  contending  for.  It 
could  give  no  strength  to  the  heart  in  the  trials 
of  life,  it  could  not  shield  it  against  the  terrors 
of  death. 

There  is  one  and  one  only  immortality  which 
can  be  of  any  interest  to  me,  the  immortality  of 
my  individual  self     There  is  that  in  me,  of  which 
I  am  conscious,  and  of  which  none  other  shares 
the  consciousness  with  me.     Shall  I, — will  that 
particular  soul  which  has  felt  and  thought  and 
suffered  and  loved  and  acted  and  struggled,  dur- 
ing a  life  of  longer  or  shorter  duration, — will  thrs, 
I   say,  survive  the  shock  of  death  ?     Will  this 
continue, — the  memory  of  its  former  self  unim- 
paired.?     Will   this   retain    the    character,    the 
physiognomy,  so  to  speak,  which  it  has  created 
for  itself  distinct  and  separate  ?     This  is  t/ie  only 
innnortality  zvhicJi  can  touch  vty  Jicart,     But  strip 
the  soul  of  all  that  is  distinctive,  of  thought,  of 
feeling,  of  will,  and  tell  me  that  its  substance 
survives,  and  you  leave  me  as  insensible  to  my 
future  destiny,  as  if  you  had  preached  to  me  an- 
nihilation. 

Yet  strange  to  say,  in  the  very  act  of  robbing 
us  of  personal  immortality,  Pantheism  claims  for 
itself  all  the  greatness  of  moral  elevation.  It 
contrives  to  throw  over  its  scheme  of  existence, 
all  the  charm,  all  the  fascination  of  self-sacrifice. 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  2  7 

It  tells  you  that  the  popular  theology,  with  its 
system  of  rewards  and  punishments  after  death, 
appeals  only  to  the  lower  part,  to  the  unreason- 
ing instinct,  to  the  selfish  principles  of  our  na- 
ture. It  tells  you  that  the  very  desire  for  the 
existence  of  the  individual  after  death  is  a  selfish 
desire.  It  bids  you  discard  that  'sentimental 
tenderness  for  the  individual  I.'  It  is  far  nobler 
to  reconcile  yourself  to  share  the  common  lot, 
even  though  it  be  a  lot  of  destruction,  to  resign 
willingly  that  brief  space  of  personal  existence 
which  has  been  allotted  you,  when  you  have  ful- 
filled its  ephemeral  purpose.  And  in  the  mean 
time  it  assures  you,  that  you  have  a  far  better 
immortality,  than  that  vague  and  distant  and 
chimerical  immortality  to  which  you  aspire.  It 
offers  you  a  present  immortality,  one  that  is  real, 
one  that  may  be  grasped  by  each  one  of  us  at 
any  moment.  It  is  not  a  form  of  the  future  life, 
it  is  a  form  of  the  present  life.  It  is  to  be  real- 
ized on  one  single  condition,  that  in  thought  we 
unite  ourselves  with  the  Eternal  Principle,  with 
the  Absolute  Substance  of  things.  This  it  is 
which  makes  us  divine.  This  it  is  which  secures 
for  us  our  immortality.  It  is  childish  to  look  for 
an  eternal  life  beyond  the  grave.  When  we  re- 
cognize our  dependence,  when  we  feel  ourselves 
cradled  and  upheld  on  the  bosom  of  the  Eternal 
substance,  which  for  a  single  moment  holds  our 


2  4  IMMOETA  LITT. 

frail  personality  suspended  over  the  abyss  of 
nothing,  then  we  possess  the  only  true  immor- 
tality. There  is  none  other  for  man,  all  else  is 
but  a  dream  and  an  illusion.  "  The  thought  of 
immortality,"  says  one  writer,  "  is  immortality." 
"  The  true  heaven,"  says  another,  "  is  in  the 
spirit,  the  thought,  the  human  consciousness, 
that  sublime  mirror  in  which  universal  life  is 
reflected  and  transfigured."  "  Heaven,"  says  a 
third,  "is  within  us.  Our  future  existence  is 
realized  every  moment.  The  individual  has  but 
one  existence,  but  it  depends  on  himself  to  en- 
large its  circle  by  extending  the  horizon  of  its 
soul.  Each  man  is  the  artificer  of  his  own  life 
and  his  own  immortality,  because  he  is  the  arti- 
ficer of  his  own  progress." 

Now  observe  the  consequence  which  follows 
directly  from  this  view.  The  law  of  recompense, 
which  is  one  of  the  most  essential  elements  of 
the  future  life,  is  marvellously  fulfilled  in  this 
world.  Each  one  has  that  immortality  which  he 
merits,  the  distribution  is  infallible,  because  that 
which  constitutes  in  each  of  us  this  immortality, 
that  which  fixes  the  degree  of  it,  is  exactly  the 
perfection  to  which  we  attain.  He  is  immortal 
in  the  fullest  sense  who  has  most  realized  the 
Divine,  in  his  life  or  in  his  thoughts,  by  know- 
ledge or  by  virtue.  All  that  is  good  in  his  life, 
all  that  is  true  in  his  thoughts,  this  it  is  which 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  25 

establishes  his  participation  in  the  Eternal.  The 
measure  therefore  of  this  knowledge  and  this  vir- 
tue are  the  measure  of  his  immortality.  They, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  altogether  excluded  from 
this  divine  life  who  fall  down  into  the  world  of 
appearance,  who  separate  themselves  from  the 
Universal  Principle,  whether  by  the  baseness  of 
their  actions,  or  the  baseness  of  their  thoughts, 
who  give  themselves  up  a  prey  to  unworthy  de- 
sires, to  selfish  pleasures,  to  the  humiliating  ty- 
ranny of  the  senses.  It  is  not  God  who  banishes 
these  men  from  Himself,  it  is  they  who  banish 
themselves  from  Him.  At  every  step  that  they 
take  away  from  truth  their  thought  becomes  dark- 
ened, the  taste  of  divine  things  is  extinguished  in 
them,  till  they  reach  the  last  deep  of  misery  and 
degradation,  which  is  to  have  no  longer  any  sense 
of  the  divine  at  all.  They  live  in  time  which  is 
the  true  death,  instead  of  living  in  the  thought 
of  things  eternal,  which  is  the  true,  the  only  im- 
mortality.* 

Now,  apart  from  a  certain  stoic  grandeur 
which  unquestionably  lends  much  of  its  attrac- 
tiveness to  this  Pantheistic  scheme,  do  we  not 
seem  to  hear  running  through  it  certain  echoes, 
however  faint  and  confused,  of  the  strains  of  a 
higher  and  more  heavenly  harmony  }    Might  we 

*  For  the  substance  of  the  last  two  paragraphs  I  am  indebted 
to  Caro,  V Idie  de  Dim,  p.  370,  &c. 


26  UIMORTALITV. 

not  almost  dream  for  a  moment  that  its  hope  is 
the  Christian's  hope,  its  triumph  the  Christian's 
triumph  ?  How  hke  they  are  and  yet  how 
unhke ! 

For  Christianity  like  Pantheism  holds  out  to 
us  union  with  God,  the  Everlasting  Fountain  of 
Life,  as  the  highest  object  of  attainment  ;  but, 
unlike  Pantheism,  Christianity  teaches,  that  the 
God  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being  is  not  an  abstraction,  but  a  Person,  not 
the  Eternal  Substance,  but  the  Eternal  Father. 
Christianity  like  Pantheism  bids  us  find  the  best 
evidence  of  our  immortality  in  this  union  with 
God,  but  unlike  Pantheism  she  bids  us  attain  to 
it,  not  by  "  the  thought  of  immortality,"  but  by 
faith 'in  Jesus  Christ.  Christianity  like  Panthe- 
ism insists  upon  it,  that  eternal  life  is  a  present 
possession,  but  unlike  Pantheism  she  no  less 
emphatically  assures  to  the  individual  an  indivi- 
dual permanence  after  death,  and  a  righteous 
retribution  according  to  the  deeds  done  in  the 
body.  But  there  is  one  point,  on  which  it  can- 
not be  pretended,  that  eveniany  shadow  of  like- 
ness exists,  between  the  immortality  of  the  Pan- 
theist and  the  immortahty  of  the  Christian. 
There  is  one  point  in  which  the  divergence 
between  the  two  is  marked,  absolute,  final.  On 
the  principles  v/hich  Pantheism  lays  down,  there 
is  no  immortality  but  for  the  elite  of  humanity. 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  27 

If  the  sense  of  immortality  is  immortality,  and 
if  I  am  eternal  because  I  think  of  the  eternal, 
then  there  is  no  immortality  for  the  crowd. 
There  is  no  future  life  but  for  thinkers.  It  is 
not  the  inalienable  heritage  of  the  race,  it  is  the 
prerogative  and  privilege  of  the  few.  And  we 
must  add  of  the  very  few.  For  if  immortality 
depends  not  only  upon  our  thought  of  God,  but 
upon  our  thought  of  so  abstract  a  being  as  the 
God  of  Pantheism,  and  if  our  share  of  eternity 
depends  on  the  development  which  Vv^e  give  to 
this  idea,  then  the  majority  of  mankind  is  for 
ever  robbed  of  all  right  to  eternal  life.  The 
poor,  the  wretched,  the  struggling,  the  vulgar 
and  ignoble  crowd,  v/ho  are  doomed  to  eat  their 
bread  in  the  sweat  of  their  brow,  these  are  not 
worthy  of  so  great  a  gift.  The  multitudes  who, 
because  they  have  the  hearts  of  men,  look  to 
heaven  in  their  sorrow,  and  cry  to  God  above,  to 
give  them  hereafter  the  peace  and  rest  which 
are  denied  them  here,  are  full  of  aspirations,  as 
vain  and  mistaken,  as  they  are  selfish.  The 
wail  of  anguish  which  has  gone  up  into  the  ear 
of  God  ever  since  the  world  was  made,  and  to 
which  men  have  so  often  thought  they  heard  an 
answer,  has  but  been  mocked  and  derided. 
There  is  no  answer.  There  is  no  hope.  "  I  can 
see  no  reason,"  says  a  recent  writer,  "  why  a 


28  nniORTALITY. 

Papuan  should  be  immortal."  *  But  if  the 
fundamental  principle  of  all  Pantheism  be  true, 
there  is  no  reason  why  ninety  and  nine  in  a 
hundred  of  the  human  race  should  be  immortal. 
Immortality  is  the  privilege  of  an  intellectual 
aristocracy,  and  it  is  a  privilege  which  they 
make  for  themselves  ;  for  they  create  their  own 
immortality. 

I  need  scarcely  remind  you,  how  wide  is  the 
diversrence  between  such  a  scheme,  and  the 
message  of  the  Gospel,  with  its  large  hopes  and 
glorious  promises  embracing  all  mankind.  It  is 
emphatically  the  glory  of  the  Gospel  that  it  ad- 
dresses itself  to  the  universal  heart.  It  knows 
no  distinction,  when  it  makes  the  offer  and  gives 
us  the  w^arrant  of  eternal  life,  between  the  pea- 
sant and  the  sage.  But  keenly  alive  to  the 
miseries,  the  sorrows,  the  sufferings,  the  fears, 
the  hopes  of  the  race,  it  addresses  itself  to  all 
alike.  It  confirms  the  just  instincts  of  the 
heart,  it  ratifies  the  verdict  of  the  conscience. 
It  leaves  no  cloud  on  man's  future  destiny. 
"  To  them  who  by  patient  continuance  in  well- 
doing seek  for  honour,  and  glory,  and  immor- 
tality," it  promises  "  eternal  life."  But  "  to  them 
who  obey  not  the  truth  "  it  threatens  "  indigna- 
tion and  wrath,  tribulation  and  anguish,  upon 
every  soul  of  man  that  doeth  evil." 

*  Renan,  Essais  dc  Morale  et  de  Cj-itiqiie. 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  29 

III.  Materialism  slays  our  hope.  Pantheism 
mocks  us  with  a  false  hope.  But  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  there  are  .teachers  of  a  better 
philosophy,  who,  without  professing  to  accept 
the  Christian  revelation,  have  striven  to  estab- 
lish on  sure  grounds  our  hopes  of  immortality. 
They  have  given  no  doubtful  answer  to  the 
question  of  the  Preacher.  They  have  adopted 
his  later  and  better  language.  They  have  main- 
tained that  when  the  body  falls  into  dust,  the 
spirit  returns  to  God  who  gave  it,  and  they  have 
sought  to  establish  at  the  same  time  its  distinct 
personality.  And  the  grounds  on  which  they 
encourage  us  to  build  our  hopes  of  a  future  life 
have  with  some  minds  considerable  weight. 
They  appeal  first  to  the  constitution  of  man, 
and  next  to  the  constitution  of  the  world.* 

i.  They  appeal  first  to  the  constitution  of 
man.  If  man  is  destined  to  a  life  beyond  the 
grave,  then  if  God  is  wise  and  good  and  right- 
eous. He  has  written  in  human  nature  some 
prophecy  of  that  life. 

(i)  Look,  then,  at  the  heart  of  man,  see  how 


*  In  what  follows,  I  am  greatly  indebted  to  Jules  Simon, 
Religion  Naturelle,  who  thinks  that  he  has  demonstrated  from 
such  considerations  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  Strange  to 
say,  he  takes  no  notice  of  the  argument  from  conscience,  which 
to  other  thinkers  appears  the  strongest  of  ^'all.  See  M'Cosh, 
I\[dIiod  of  the  Divine  Qavernmenf,  p.  514,  sixth  edition. 


30  nniORTALITY. 

vast  a  thing  is  human  love.  Conceive  of  it  in 
any  form  you  please,  the  love  of  family,  the  love 
of  father,  child,  wife,  friends  ;  or  the  love  of  art, 
or  glory,  or  country,  or  mankind.  Whence 
comes  that  marvellous  force  of  love  .'*  It  is  not 
the  object  which  creates  the  love,  for  the  heart 
may  set  itself  upon  an  unworthy  object,  and  the 
object  which  to  one  seems  loveliest  may  possess 
no  attractions  for  others.  It  is  the  love  which 
clothes  the  object  with  ideal  loveliness.  No- 
thing shows  more  strikingly  than  this  fact  that 
we  are  something  in  ourselves,  that  we  do  not 
depend  entirely  upon  our  senses,  and  upon  the 
outer  world.  Look  above  all  at  that  soul  which 
lavishes  itself  without  one  thought  of  self,  which 
only  lives  and  breathes  for  the  happiness  of 
another,  which  thinks  no  sacrifice  too  great, 
which  cannot  be  disenchanted,  which  death  can- 
not rob  altogether,  which  even  treachery  and 
contempt  cannot  alienate,  which  sheds  all  its 
treasures  of  affection  on  a  deformed  body,  a 
sickly  spirit,  an  ungrateful  heart.  Is  that  mighty 
force  of  love  no  more  than  the  flame  of  a  candle 
which  at  last  goes  out  in  the  socket }  Nay  more, 
when  rising  above  the  works  of  God  to  God 
Himself,  love  fastens  itself  immediately  on  the 
supreme  object  of  love,  shall  it  be  frustrated  in 
its  hopes  .-*  Shall  that  love,  at  once  so  holy  and 
so  strong,  be  for  ever  shattered  by  deatli  ?    Shall 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  3 1 

God  never  show  himself?  Shall  God  never  give 
Himself?  Shall  that  which  seemed  the  most  real 
thing  in  life,  prove  only  to  be  a  deception  and  a 
torture  ?  No,  the  heart  of  man  prophesies  his 
immortality. 

(2)  Look  again  at  the  intellect  of  man.  This 
likewise  is  too  large  for  the  world  ;  eternity  is 
in  its  eye,  and  ujDon  its  forehead.  How  "  con- 
fined and  pestered  "  it  is  "  within  the  pinfold  " 
of  the  body  !  How  it  strives  to  vanquish  space 
and  to  triumph  over  time.  How  it  ranges 
through  the  past  and  anticipates  the  future. 
How  boldly  it  endeavors  to  gather  all  pheno- 
mena however  scattered  into  the  common  unity 
of  Universal  laws.  Does  it  not  seek  to  grasp 
eternity  ?  Does  it  not  desire  to  know  God  ?  And 
does  not  every  fresh  discovery  that  we  make  call 
forth  in  us,  as  it  were  a  new  power,  impelling 
us,  with  ever  fresh  and  sustained  ardor,  on  the 
path  of  further  investigations  ?  Can  we  recognize 
in  such  facts  no  footsteps  of  a  Divine  purpose  ? 
Shall  we  only  behold  afar  off  the  Promised 
Land,  and  never  be  suffered  to  enter  into  its 
borders  ?  Surely  the  intellect  of  man,  like  the 
heart  of  man,  prophesies  his  immortality. 

(3)  Once  more,  look  at  the  conscience  of  man. 
Is  there  not  a  Law  to  which  we  involuntarily  do 
homage  ?  Do  we  not  know  and  feel  that  there 
is  an  Eternal  Right  which  claims  our  allegiance  ? 


3  2  nniOR  TA  LITY. 

And  do  we  not  strive  to  render  that  allegiance, 
whilst  we  are  ever  painfully  conscious  that  we 
fall  far  short  of  its  just  and  acknowledged  de- 
mands ?  It  is  of  no  consequence  to  the  argument 
what  view  we  hold  as  to  the  origin  or  the  edu- 
cation of  Conscience.  It  is  the  fact  that  such 
an  authority  exists,  that  such  an  authority  is  felt 
to  be  binding.  There  is  implied,  in  every  re- 
cognition of  duty  the  sense  of  a  law,  and  there- 
fore, we  instinctively  feel,  of  a  Lawgiver,  who  is 
also  a  Judge,  and  who  will  punish  the  transgres- 
sion of  duty.  Conscience  reminds  us  of  per- 
petual failure,  short-coming,  transgression,  and 
conscience  sets  before  us  the  penalty,  and  not 
content  with  the  retribution  here  extends  it  into 
the  world  to  come.  It  is  not  merely  the  Chris- 
tian conscience  which  thus  speaks,  it  is  the  con- 
science of  all  men.  St.  Paul  scarcely  describes 
more  feelingly,  than  many  a  heathen  moralist 
and  poet,  the  terrible  disruption  of  the  inner 
man,  the  knowledge  of  the  Law  and  the  obe- 
dience to  appetite,  the  sense  of  right  and  the 
slavery  to  evil.  Christianity  scarcely  speaks 
more  clearly,  than  many  a  heathen  religion,  of 
the  retribution  which  the  Righteous  Judge  shall 
mete  out  on  the  final  day  of  reckoning.  "  Every 
man  feels,"  it  has  been  said,  "as  if  he  had  at  the 
end  of  his  earthly  career  to  appear  before  his 
Governor,  and  as  if  there  was  to  be  a  reckoning 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  2)Z 

at  the  close  of  the  day  of  life.  The  time  and 
manner  of  the  judgment  are  unknown,  but  the 
judgment  itself  and  the  law  are  so  far  revealed. 
There  is  a  feeling  of  this  kind  originating  in 
deep  internal  principles,  and  strengthened  by 
the  observation  of  retribution  in  the  providence 
of  God,  haunting  mankind  all  through  their  life, 
and  coming  on  them  impressively  at  a  dying- 
hour.  Such  a  day  of  account  evidently  implies 
a  future  world,  and  a  separate  state."  * 

But  this  is  not  the  only  part  of  the  witness  of 
conscience.  There  is  the  witness  which  arises 
from  the  sincere  effort  to  obey,  as  well  as  the 
witness  from  a  sense  of  opposition  to  the  law. 
All  these  honest,  broken,  imperfect  struggles, 
ever  baffled,  ever  disappointed,  are  they  all  with- 
out meaning,  and  without  aim  }  If  the  very  frag- 
mentariness  of  human  hopes,  and  efforts  and 
aspirations,  may  be  taken  as  any  indication,  that 
the  heart  and  the  intellect  shall  ultimately  find 
their  completeness,  much  more  may  we  argue, 
that  the  highest  part  of  man's  nature  is  not 
intended  to  be  always  stunted  and  deformed. 
The  knowledge  of  God,  and  obedience  to  God 
were  not  intended  to  be  imperfect.  Most  surely 
the  day  will  come  when  "  we  shall  know  even  as 
we  are  known,"  when  we  shall  "  be  perfect,  even 

*  M'Cosh,  as  quoted  above. 


34  IMMORTALITY. 

as  our  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is  iDerfect." 
The  conscience  of  man,  more  clearly  than  heart 
or  intellect,  prophesies  his  immortality. 

Such  is  the  ajopeal  made  by  the  advocates 
of  Natural  Religion  to  the  constitution  of  man. 
They  appeal  to  the  heart  of  man  with  its  mighty 
capacity  of  love  never  satisfied  till  it  has  laid 
hold  on  God.  They  appeal  to  the  intellect  of 
man  with  its  mighty  capacities  of  knowledge, 
never  satisfied  save  as  it  seeks  to  track  the  ways 
of  God.  They  appeal  to  the  conscience  of  man, 
that  witness  to  an  Eternal  Right,  ever  acknow- 
ledging the  authority  of  God,  ever  struggling 
more  or  less  imperfectly  to  fulfil  His  will,  yet 
ever,  as  it  falls  short,  confessing  that  hereafter, 
if  not  here,  His  will  shall  be  done  upon  earth 
even  as  it  is  in  heaven.  Thus  the  heart  of  man, 
and  the  intellect  of  man,  and  the  conscience  of 
man,  alike  refuse  to  accept  the  sentence  of  anni- 
hilation. 

ii.  Not  less  convincing  is  the  argument  drawn 
from  the  constitution  of  the  world.  There  is 
evil  in  the  world,  physical  evil  and  moral  evil. 
And  evil  cries  out  against  the  power  or  the  good- 
ness or  the  justice  of  God.  Physical  evil  is  not 
difficult  to  account  for;  nor. yet  the  mere  fact 
that  some  portion  of  evil  attaches  to  us  as  creat- 
ed beings.  We  must  be  imperfect.  It  would  be 
absurd  to  complain  that  God,  who  has  made  us 


THE  FUTURE   LIFE.  35 

in  His  image,  has  not  made  iis  His  equals.  But 
it  is  not  so  easy  to  understand  why  God,  who 
has  given  us  all  the  same  nature,  the  same  name, 
the  same  destiny,  has  not  given  us  all  the  same 
means  and  opportunities  of  success,  that  He  has 
made  one  poor  and  auQther  rich,  that  he  has  set 
the  imperishable  crown  of  genius  on  the  head  of 
one,  and  has  given  to  another  a  degree  of  intelli- 
gence scarcely  above  that  of  the  brutes,  that  He 
assigns  to  each,  in  such  unequal  measure,  his 
portion  of  good  and  evil,  filling  the  cup  of  one  to 
the  brim  with  every  pleasure  that  can  gratify  the 
sense,  taking  away  from  another,  by  an  arbitrary 
sentence,  health,  honor,  wife,  children,  all  that 
makes  life  sweet,  all  that  supports,  and  strength- 
ens, and  consoles.  No  stoic  philosophy  can 
charm  us  into  insensibility  to  these  facts.  But 
this  inequality  in  the  distribution  of  good  and 
evil  weighs  upon  us  far  more  heavily,  when  we 
see  the  good  man  bowed  down  with  undeserved 
misery,  and  the  sinner  prosperous  and  triumph- 
ant. It  is  a  shock  to  the  best  part  of  our  nature 
to  witness  such  contradictions.  It  would  crush 
us,  if  we  were  to  believe  that  they  shall  be  for 
ever  without  redress.  It  is  quite  true  that,  the 
good  man  would  love  goodness  apart  from  future 
recompense  ;  but  so  long  as  there  is  the  sense  of 
justice  in  his  heart,  you  can  never  bring  him  to 
believe,  that  wickedness  deserves    success  and 


36  immortality: 

goodness  defeat.  If  we  can  form  any  true  idea 
of  righteousness,  and  if  God  is  righteous,  then 
who  will  pretend  to  say,  that  in  the  present  con- 
stitution of  the  world  His  righteousness  is  fully 
vindicated  ?  The  hard,  grasping,  money-loving, 
money-getting  man,  who  grinds  the  faces  of  the 
poor,  and  rises  to  affluence  on  the  stepping- 
stones  of  human  lives,  is  prosperous  and  honor- 
ed, and  takes  his  seat  in  Parliament,  and  fares 
sumptuously  every  day,  and  is  buried  magnifi- 
cently, and  has  a  proud  epitaph  on  his  tomb. 
And  the  poor  Lazarus  at  his  gate  starving,  and 
with  scarcely  a  rag  to  cover  him,  sees  his  wife 
and  children  pining  with  sickness  and  hunger 
before  his  eyes,  and  drags  his  miserable  existence 
to  an  end,  with  no  hand  to  smooth  his  pillow. 
The  proud  and  delicate  and  highborn  woman 
lives  her  easy,  fashionable,  luxurious  life,  insen- 
sible to  every  claim  but  the  claim  of  her  own 
•canity ;  and  in  yon  miserable  garret,  her  poor 
sister  is  toiling  through  the  long  hours  of  a 
winter's  night,  with  weary  eyes  and  weary  heart, 
the  fatal  flush  on  her  cheek,  and  the  sharp,  quick 
cough  shaking  her  to  pieces,  and  the  hot  tear  in 
her  eye  as  she  feels  her  strength  failing,  and  so  she 
sinks,  unknown  and  uncared  for,  into  her  early 
grave.  Who  can  believe  that  there  we  see  the  end 
of  the  tragedy }  It  is  not  poetry  ;  it  is  the  divinest 
justice,  it  is  the  truest  truth,  which  gives  us  to 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  37 

see  in  the  other  world  the  reverse  of  the  picture  : 
"  And  now  he  is  comforted  and  thou  art  tor- 
mented." Yes,  either  there  is  no  justice  and 
therefore  no  God,  or  there  is  a  life  to  come,  in 
which  the  naked  horror  of  wickedness  shall  ap- 
pear, stript  alike  of  its  covering  and  its  preemi- 
nence, and  the  pure  beauty  of  goodness  shall  be 
everlastingly  revealed. 

By  these  and  other  like  arguments,  men  have 
sought,  even  apart  from  Revelation,  to  build  up 
and  confirm  their  hope  of  Immortality.  But  it 
cannot  be  said,  whatever  those  who  advance 
them  may  claim  for  them,  that  such  arguments 
make  a  future  life  certain.  They  do  unques- 
tionably confirm  the  instinctive  hope  of  the 
human  heart.  They  make  a  future  life  not 
improbable,  but  they  do  not  prove  it ;  they  leave 
us  still  with  a  doubt  in  our  hearts  and  perhaps  a 
trembling  on  our  lips.  So  far  as  they  are  strong, 
it  is  because  in  a  degree  which  we  little  suspect, 
we  bring  them  in  aid  of  our  Christian  faith  ;  but 
apart  from  that  faith  they  have  no  solid  ground, 
Take  away  the  Christian  truth  of  a  resurrection, 
assured  to  us  by  the  Resurrection  of  Christ,  and 
these- arguments  lose  their  force.  You  are  left 
in  a  world  of  shadows.  You  are  struggling  in 
vain  to  assure  yourself  of  your  personal  existence 
hereafter.  The  immortality  of  the  soul  is  _  a 
phantom  which  eludes  your  eager  grasp.     Natu- 


3S  nniORTALITY, 

ral  religion  can  never  make  a  future  life  certain  ; 
such  arguments  as  I  have  mentioned  are  only 
corroborative  of  a  foregone  conclusion.  The 
Christian  doctrine  of  the  Resurrection,  as  I  shall 
hope  hereafter  to  show,  alone  meets  the  instincts 
of  the  human  heart,  alone  satisfies  us  both  of  ex- 
istence and  of  recompense  after  death. 

Meanwhile,  what  is  it  to  us,  my  brethren,  that 
we  possess  that  Revelation  of  Life  and  Immor- 
tality unless  we  are  walking  in  the  light  thereof  1 
What  is  it  to  us  that  the  Son  of  God  has  come, 
and  having  in  our  flesh  died  and  risen  again,  is 
our  Precursor  in  the  path  of  Immortality,  unless 
in  the  strength  of  His  life  we  are  triumphing 
over  sin  and  death  .'*  We  may  indeed  reject  the 
Materialist's  creed.  We  may  profess  to  look 
upon  it  with  horror  and  aversion.  Those  words 
which  we  have  been  taught  to  repeat  from  our 
earliest  years,  linked  with  so  many  holy  associ- 
ations, "  I  believe  in  the  Resurrection  of  the 
body,  and  the  life  everlasting,"  may  linger  still 
like  some  echo  of  a  far-off  world  in  our  minds, 
and  we  may  not  be  able — God  forbid  we  ever 
should  be  able — to  make  deliberate  shipwreck  of 
our  Christian  faith.  But  they  may,  alas !  have 
lost  their  hold  upon  us.  The  m.aterialism  of  the 
senses,  or  the  materialism  of  the  intellect,  may 
have  enslaved  and  enthralled  us,  till,  having 
brought  ourselves  to  live  like  the  brutes,  we  may 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  39 

even  desire  to  perish  like  the  brutes.  If  this  be 
so  with  any  here,  may  God  open  their  eyes  to 
their  folly,  ere  it  be  too  late.  May  He  teach 
us  to  know  that  for  all  our  human  life,  for  every 
act,  every  word,  every  thought.  He  will  bring  us 
into  judgment.  May  He  rouse,  and  sober,  and 
solemnize  us.  May  He  give  us  grace  "  to  cast 
away  the  works  of  darkness  and  put  upon  us  the 
armor  of  light ;"  that  quickened  by  His  life,  we 
may  stand  erect  before  Him,  in  the  full  con- 
sciousness of  our  high  privilege  as  sons  of 
grace,  heirs  of  God,  and  "  candidates  for  Immor- 
tality." 


LECTURE    11. 

THE   HOPE    OF   THE    GENTILE. 

2  Timothy  I.  lo. 

.  .  .  Who  hath  abolished  Dcath^  and  brought  Life  and 
l7nviortality  to  light  through  tJic  Gospel. 

In  my  last  Lecture  I  glanced  at  some  of  those 
philosophical  systems  which,  having  their  origin 
later  than  Christianity,  profess  to  deal  with  the 
problem  of  a  Future  Life. 

I  purpose  in  this  Lecture  briefly  to  pass  in  re- 
view some  of  the  doctrines  of  heathen  religions, 
and  some  of  the  speculations  of  heathen  philoso- 
phers on  the  Life  to  come.  In  the  religious 
system,  we  may  recognize  the  voice  of  man's 
heart  and  conscience  ;  in  the  philosophical 
speculation,  we  shall  trace  the  effort  to  give  cer- 
tainty to  the  instincts  of  nature  by  the  aid  of 
reason  and  experience.  We  shall  observe — 
however  it  may  be  accounted  for — that  there  is 
for  the  most  part  a  growth  and  development  of 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE    G ENTILE.  41 

belief.  The  primary,  elemental  belief,  that  death 
is  not  the  end  of  man,  may  be  said  to  be  as 
wide  as  the  human  race.  Even  in  such  systems 
as  those  of  Buddha  and  Confucius,  which  have 
sometimes  been  held  either  formally  to  deny,  or 
at  any  rate  to  pass  by  in  silence  a  life  beyond 
the  grave,  there  may  be  found  traces  of  such  a 
belief,  and  whatsoever  the  sage  may  have  held, 
or  the  philosopher  have  thought,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  as  to  the  popular  persuasion.  The 
worship  of  ancestors  in  China,  the  infinite  series 
of  transmigrations  through  which  the  Buddhist 
must  pass,  before  he  can  hope  to  attain  Nirvana, 
are  witnesses  to  that  indestructible  instinct  of 
the  human  heart,  which  refuses  to  admit  the  an- 
nihilation of  so  divine  a  thing  as  man.  But  this 
universal,  ineradicable  belief  has  assumed  a 
variety  of  different  forms.  Its  first  and  simplest 
expression  has  been  in  the  respect  shown  for  the 
dead,  in  the  interment,  in  the  treasuring  of  the 
ashes  in  the  urn,  in  the  tomb  however  simple 
and  unadorned.  Its  first  attempt  to  conceive  of 
another  life  has  been  by  assigning  to  the  soul  a 
form,  and  by  imagining,  that  the  jDursuits  and 
occupations  of  the  next  world  were  a  mere  con- 
tinuation of  the  pursuits  and  occupations  of  the 
present  world.  In  a  later  stage  of  culture,  when 
the  moral  problems  of  life  have  begun  to  press 
more   heavily,  and  the   moral   sense   has  been 


4  2  nniOE  TALITY. 

* 

more  keenly  exercised,  we  see  men  not  content 
with  the  bare  belief  in  a  future  existence,  but 
picturing  it  to  themselves,  as  the  great  theatre 
of  Divine  Righteousness,  as  a  state  in  which  the 
final  severance  shall  be  made  between  the  good 
and  the  wicked,  as  everlasting  joy  to  the  one, 
and  everlasting  confusion  to  the  other.  And, 
finally,  as  marking  a  yet  higher  degree  of  the 
reflective  analysis  or  of  the  Divine  education,  we 
find  a  belief,  more  or  less  clearly  implied,  that 
the  body  itself  shall  be  redeemed  from  corrup- 
tion, and  raised  to  share  with  the  spirit  an 
endless  and  incorruptible  life. 

Let  us  glance  at  some  of  the  more  salient 
forms  which  the  belief  in  a  Future  Life  has  as- 
sumed, and  let  us  take  them  as  they  have  been 
developed  in  Egypt,  in  Greece,  in  Asia. 

What  is  the  language  of  the  most  ancient  doc- 
uments to  which  we  can  appeal }  We  shall  find 
it,  as  we  might  anticipate,  not  in  a  formal  trea- 
tise, but  in  a  popular  expression,  and,  strange  to 
say,  in  an  Egyptian  romance.  There  is  in  the 
British  Museum  an  old  papyrus,  brown  and  crum- 
bling, covered  with  mysterious  characters,  traced 
two  and  thirty  centuries  ago  by  the  hand  of  the 
scribe  Annana.  He  was,  in  all  probability,  a 
contemporary  of  Moses,  and  the  story  which  he 
has  written,  and  which  has  recently  been  deciph- 
ered, bears  in  some  particulars  a  curious  resem- 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE   GENTILE.  43 

blaiice  to  the  history  of  Joseph,  as  recorded  in 
Genesis.  It  is  full  of  interest,  both  from  its 
many  points  of  contact  with  the  rites  and  tradi- 
tions of  other  countries,  and  also  from  the  singu- 
lar light  it  throws  on  the  manners  and  customs 
and  beliefs  of  the  ancient  Egyptians.  But  the 
special  interest,  for  our  present  purpose,  lies  in 
the  way  in  which  throughout  it  implies  a  belief, 
not  only  in  the  transmigration  of  souls,  but  also 
in  the  separate  existence  of  the  soul  from  the  body. 
Two  brothers  figure  in  the  story.  The  soul  of 
one  goes  into  the  topmost  blossom  of  a  cedar- 
tree  while  he  is  still  alive.  After  a  time  he  dies, 
and  then  his  brother,  seeking  three  years  for  the 
soul,  finds  it  at  last  in  the  fruit  which  has  fallen 
from  the  tree.  He  places  it  in  a  vessel  of  water, 
and  it  revives,  and  enters  again  into  his  brother. 
After  this,  his  brother  is  changed  into  a  bullock, 
and  then,  when  the  bullock  is  slain,  the  soul 
passes  into  a  tree,  retaining  in  each  of  its  trans- 
migrations the  power  of  speech,  and  the  recol- 
lection of  his  former  life.*'  Such  is  perhaps  the 
earliest  account  to  be  found,  in  any  heathen  na- 
tion, of  a  belief  in  an  existence  after  death.  It 
is  in  many  respects  coarse  and  material ;   it  is 


*  For  a  full  account  of  this  papyrus,  see  Brugsch,  Atts  dan 
Orient.  I  have  given  a  translation  of  it  in  "  Good  Words  "  for 
Feb.  1867. 


44  nniORTALITT. 

confused  in  its  expression.     It  stands  in  strange 
contrast  with  those  yet  earlier  words  of  a  Jewish 
book  :  "  And  Enoch  walked  Avith  God,  and  he 
was  not ;  for  God  took  him  : "  but  it  has  its  value 
as  an  ancient  testimony  to  man's  instinctive  as- 
surance of  his  own  immortality.     Granted  that 
this  takes  the  form  of  metempsychosis,  still,  in 
one  noticeable  respect,  it  differs  from  later  sys- 
tems in  which  the  same  doctrine  appears.     The 
soul  preserves  its  personality.     Whatever  body 
it  may  assume,  it  remembers  its  former  existence. 
It  drinks  no  water  of  oblivion  as  in  the  myths  of 
Plato,  or  in  the  fantastic  pictures  of  some  mod- 
ern philosophers.     It  is  however  in  the  "  Rituals 
of  the  Dead,"  that  we  look  for  the  fuller  and 
more  definite  statements  of  the  Egyptian  creed. 
These  documents,  rolled  up  in  a  cylindrical  form 
and  placed  not  unfrequently  in  the  Sarcophagi, 
were  intended  to  serve  as  a  guide-book  for  the 
soul,  in  her  pilgrimages  in  the  train  of  Osiris 
through  the  regions  below  ;  and  they  furnish  us 
with  ample  evidence,  that  the  old  Egypfian  be- 
lieved in  an  individual  immortality,  and  a  judg- 
ment after  death.     Here,  as  in  almost  every  an- 
cient system,  the  life  to  come  is  conceived  of  as 
little  else  than  a  continuation  of  the  life  that  is. 
If  the  soul  survives,  it  cannot  be  regarded  as  a 
pure  spirit,  it  must  still  possess  some  of  the  pro- 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE   GEXTILE.  45 

jDcrties  of  the  material  body.*  Hence,  "  at  an 
Egyptian  funeral,  common  articles  of  food  and 
dress  and  certain  implements  of  war,  of  business, 
and  of  pleasure,  were  deposited  with  or  near  the 
corpse  :  the  scenes  of  daily  life  were  pictured  on 
the  mummy-cases,  not  so  much  in  order  to  ex- 
press the  piety  of  survivors,  as  to  gratify  and 
stimulate  the  dead  :  a  string  of  prayers  and  other 
formulae  were  also  buried  with  him  for  his  con- 
stant admonition,  and  as  passports  through  the 
unknown  world  to  which  he  had  been  destined  ; 
and  at  length  when  he  was  entering  '  the  dark 
place'  itself,  the  popular  belief  assigned  him 
bread  and  drink,  and  slices  of  flesh  off  the  table 
of  the  sun  ;  when  he  traverses  the  fields  of  the 
blessed,  corn  and  barley  are  given  to  him,  for 
he  is  provided  as  he  was  upon  earth."!  But  the 
Egyptian,  if  he  thus  conceived  of  a  quasi-mate- 
rial soul,  did  not  on  that  account  make  light  of 
the  body.  If  we  do  not  find  any  mention  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  body,  yet  the  body  was  evi- 
dently regarded  as  partaking,  in  some  mysterious 
manner,  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  In  no 
other  way  can  we  explain  the  care  taken  in  em- 
balming, or  that  lofty  title  given  to  the  mummy, 

*  Animos  enim  per  se  ipsos  viventes  non  poterant  mente  com- 
plecti;  formam  aliquam  figuramque  quosrebant.     Cic.  Tusc.  I. 

t  Hardwick,  Christ  ajid  Other  Masters.     Ft.  IV.  pp.  79 — 90. 


46  IMMORTALITY. 

which  designated  it  as  ^  the  habitation  of  Osiris/ 
or  the  prayers  offered  to  the  same  god  for  its  in- 
corruptibility, or  the  sepulchre  built  as  it  seemed 
to  defy  all  time,  which  the  Egyptian  might  well 
call  his  dwelUng-place  and  *  everlasting  home.' 
It  would  detain  us  too  long,  to  enter  at  any  length 
into  that  very  remarkable  portion  of  the  Egyp- 
tian creed,  which  relates  to  a  judgment  after 
death.  But  as  they  held  that  the  personal  in- 
dividuality was  not  lost,  and  as  they  cherished 
the  belief  in  some  close  and  mysterious  connec- 
tion between  soul  and  body  after  death,  so  also 
they  believed  in  a  future  state  of  rewards  and 
punishments.  "  Each  one  must  submit,  as  he 
enters  the  unseen  world,  to  the  awful  judgment 
of  Osiris  and  his  assessors,  Truth  and  Justice. 
The  heart  of  the  deceased  is  weighed  in  the  fatal 
balance,  and  if  he  cannot  declare  himself  free 
from  sin,  he  is  handed  over  to  the  ministers  of 
vengeance,  and  after  passing  from  one  bestial 
shape  to  another,  is  at  last  plunged  into  a  lake, 
whose  waters  of  flame  and  waves  of  fire  are  of 
the  most  intense  and  unconquerable  heat,  while 
the  thirst  of  the  dead  in  it  is  unquenchable  ;  and 
they  have  no  peace  in  it  because  it  is  filled  with 
weeds  and  filth."*  The  spirit,  on  the  other  hand, 
which  has  been  prdnounced  free,  passes  into  the 

*  Birch,  as  quoted  by  Hardvvick. 


THE  UOFE   OF  THE   GENTILE,  47 

abodes  of  the  blessed,  and  at  last  attains  to  per- 
fection by  absolute  union  with  Osiris,  the  Sun- 
god.  '  This  great  god  speaks  to  them  and  they 
speak  to  him  ;  his  glory  illuminates  them  in  the 
splendor  of  his  disc,  while  he  is  shining  in  their 
sphere.'  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remark,  how 
much  there  is  in  such  a  theology  as  this,  which, 
if  it  is  not  the  echo  of  an  earlier  revelation,  finds 
at  least  some  points  of  contact  with  the  Christian 
faith.  That  lake  of  fire  and  that  thirst  unquench- 
able, do  we  not  find  them  in  the  words  of  our 
Master  and  the  writings  of  His  Apostles  }  That 
union  with  the  true  God  and  blessed  converse 
with  Him,  is  not  this  the  hope  which,  beyond 
all  things  else,  animates  the  Christian,  as  he 
seeks  to  pierce  within  the  veil,  and  pictures  to 
himself  a  glorious  immortality  1  I  do  not  indeed 
pretend  to  put  the  one  belief  on  a  level  wifh  the 
other.  Still  less  would  I  be  thought  to  imply, 
that  the  one  is  in  any  true  sense  the  anticipation 
of  the  other.  But  no  more  striking  proof  could 
be  given  of  the  testimonhnn  anhncB  natiiralitcr 
ChristiancB ;  no  clearer  evidence  that  the  heart 
and  the  conscience  of  man  are  witnesses  to  the 
truth.  What  Christ  did  was  not,  for  the  first 
time,  to  teach  immortality  and  a  judgment  to 
come ;  for  God  had  written  these  things  in  hu- 
man nature  at  the  creation.  But  He  dispelled 
the  doubts  which  perplexed  and  tortured  men 


48  nnioETALiTr. 

in  the  prospect  of  death.  By  His  own  Resur- 
rection He  annulled  death,  and  in  the  light  of 
that  Resurrection  made  Life  and  linmortality 
sure. 

From  the  Egyptian  we  turn  to  the  Greek. 
And  here  again  we  encounter,  first  and  in  its 
earliest  stage,  the  popular  doctrine — the  ac- 
cepted fact  of  an  existence  after  death,  and  an 
attempt  to  conceive,  and  to  set  forth  to  the 
popular  mind,  the  nature  of  that  existence,  the 
pursuits  and  employments  of  the  world  below. 
But  the  Homeric  representation  is  indistinct, 
confused,  even  contradictory.  The  dead  have 
lost  their  true  conscious  personality,  yet  they 
can  be  recognized ;  they  still  retain  their  earthly 
image  and  lineaments.  They  have  a  form,  but 
it  is  an  unsubstantial  form  which  eludes  the 
grasp.  "  Such  is  the  lot  of  mortals,"  exclaims 
the  mother  of  Ulysses,  "  when  they  die  ;  the 
muscles  no  longer  hold  together  the  flesh  and 
bones,  but  they  perish  in  the  fire  when  the 
breath  leaves  the  body,  and  the  soul  flits  hither 
and  thither  like  a  dream."  They  have  neither 
speech  nor  power  of  recognition,  till  they  taste 
the  blood  of  the  victims,  which  Ulysses  has 
poured  into  the  trench  ;*  for  in  the  blood  is  the 
life.     They  dwell  in  a  region  of  thickest  dark- 

*  Od.  XI.  vv.  142 — 390. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE    GENTILE.  4g 

ness.  So  profound  is  the  gloom  that  settles  even 
on  the  noblest  spirits,  that  nothing  can  charm 
it  away.  It  is  in  vain  to  soothe  Achilles  by 
reminding  him  that,  as  he  was  honored  like  a 
god  when  alive,  so  now  he  is  supreme  ruler  of 
the  dead.  He  puts  away  the  consolation,  and 
declares  that  he  would  rather  be  the  hireling  of 
a  man  of  no  substance,  and  of  cramped  and  nar- 
row means,  than  be  lord  of  all  the  dead.  One 
thing  only  touches  his  heart  with  joy,  and  that 
is,  to  hear  that  his  son  bears  himself  bravely 
in  the  fight,  and  sustains  the  honor  of  his  name. 
Such  then  is  the  future  life,  as  it  presented 
itself  to  the  early  thought  of  the  Greeks,  and  such 
is  the  popular  mythology.  The  body  falls  to  dust, 
even  the  spirit  perishes  for  ever  ;*  but  the  soul 
exists,  and  its  dwelling-place  is  beneath  the 
earth  :  it  lives  a  cold,  sad,  gloomy,  dream-like  life ; 
it  lives  mindful  of  its  former  pursuits,  but  no 
longer  able  to  enjoy  them.  Of  the  doctrine  of  a 
retribution,  we  find  only  the  germ  in  the  genu- 
ine portion  of  the  Homeric  jDoems.  The  crime 
of  perjury  is  singled  out  for  mention,  as  one 
which  draws  down  upon  it  vengeance  in  another 
life.  The  judgment  of  Minos  in  the  sha'des 
below,  and  the  Tartarus  and  Elysium,  the  abode 
severally  of  the  just  and  unjust,  are  doubtless 

*  Nagelsbach,  d/e  Ilomcrische  Theologie,  p.  397,  398. 


5  O  IJLMOR  TA  LITY. 

subsequent  accretions,  the  embodiments  of  a 
later  mythology,  which,  however,  grew  and  took 
more  definite  shape,  till  they  became  an  acknow- 
ledged element  in  the  popular  creed.* 

In  the  dramatic  Poets  of  a  later  age,  the  pic- 
ture is  not  very  different :  except  in  the  greater 
prominence  given  to  the  punishrhent  of  the 
wicked,  the  representation  is  to  all  practical 
purpose  the  same.  The  dead,  says  ^schylus, 
sleep  "  in  light  which  is  not  light,  but  darkness 
visible"  {C/w.  311) :  they  are  past  feeling  ;  they 
"  have  lost  the  wish  even  to  rise  again."  Darius, 
though  a  king  below,  yet  like  Achilles,  finds  no 
joy  in  his  kingly  dignity,  and  bids  the  suppliants 
who  had  evoked  him  to  reap  pleasure  while  it  is 
yet  day,  "for  the  dead  are  shrouded  in  thick 
gloom,  where  wealth  avails  not." 

In  one  respect  however  the  view  of  ^schylus, 
as  has  been  recently  pointed  out,  is  one  of  pecu- 
liar gloom  and  severity.  For  him  there  exists 
no  Elysium  for  the  blessed,  no  reward  for  good- 
ness in  the  life  beyond  the  grave.  "  ^schylus 
has  not  one  word  of  true  hope  for  a  future  state, 
not  one  image  of  another  field  of  labor,  where 
the  character  trained  by  sorrow  here  shall  find 
exercise  for  its  chastened  power.  It  is  scarcely 
too  much  to  say,  that  for  him  the  other  world, 

*  Nagelsbach  ///  sttpra,  p.  407.     He  points  out  how  confused, 
and  even  contradictory,  the  Homeric  representations  are. 


THE  IIOFE    OF  THE    GEXTILE.  5 1 

and  the  powers  by  which  it  is  governed,  exist 
only  for  the  guilty.  There  remains  an  awful 
and  just  punishment  for  all  who  sinned  in  life 
against  God,  or  strangers,  or  parents  : — 

For  Hades  is  a  stern  inquisitor 

Of  men  beneath  the  Earth,  and  views  their  deeds, 

And  enters  them  in  the  tablets  of  his  mind 

The  lewd  offender  shall  not,  when  he  dies. 
Escape  arraignment  in  the  shades  below. 
Even  there,  another  Zeus,  as  legends  tell, 
Gives  final  judgment  on  the  crimes  of  men. 

And  so  it  comes  to  pass  that  the  retribution  is 
completed  there,  which  the  Erinyes  had  begun 
on  earth."'  .  .  .  But  "  the  fulness  of  human 
life  is  on  earth.  The  part  of  man  in  all  his 
capacity  for  passion  and  action  is  played  out 
here ;  and  when  the  curtain  falls,  there  remains 
unbroken  rest,  or  a  faint  reflection  of  the  past, 
or  suffering  wrought  by  the  ministers  of  inexo- 
rable justice.  The  beauty  and  the  power  of  life, 
the  manifold  ministers  of  sense,  are  gone.  They 
can  be  regretted,  but  they  cannot  be  replaced. 
Sorrow  is  possible,  but  not  joy."  * 

But  there  were  those  whom  neither  the  popular 
mythology,  nor  the  deeper  theology  of  the  poets 
could  satisfy.  The  philosopher,  questioning 
with  himself  concerning  himself,  asked  for  some 

*  Westcott,  Theology  of  A^sc/iylus,  in  Coiitcvip.  Rev.  for  Nov. 
1866. 


5  2  IMMORTALITY. 

clear  evidence  of  immortality,  and   speculated 
concerning   the   nature   of    a   life    beyond   the 
grave.     In  Plato  the  question  recurs  again  and 
again.     It  arrests  and  fascinates  him.     Never 
was  a  nobler  effort  made  by  man,  to  attain  to 
certainty  on    any  question    affecting    his    ov/n 
nature  and  destiny.    And  nowhere  is  to  be  found 
a  more  signal  proof,  that  by  the  unaided  rea- 
son of  man  such  certainty  cannot  be  attained, 
that,  as  Socrates  himself  confesses,  man  needs 
a  Divine  teacher  to  dispel  his  ignorance  and  to 
cast   light   upon   life  and  immortality.     In  the 
Phccdo,    Socrates    considers    himself    to    have 
proved,  that  the  soul  cannot  die,  though  he  ad- 
mits that  there  may  be  ground  for  disputing  the 
soundness  of  his  reasoning.      In  the  Republic, 
he  thinks  that  he  has  established  beyond  the 
reach  of  doubt,  the  immortality  of  the  soul.     But 
in  the  Apology,  true  to  his  principles,  he  confes- 
ses iiis  ignorance.     To  fear  death,  would  be  to 
pretend  to  a  knowledge  which  he  does  not  pro- 
fess, for  no  one  knows  what  death  is  ;  for  ought 
that   appears    to   the   contrary,  it   may  be   the 
greatest  of  blessings,  and  yet  men  fear  it  as  if 
they  knciv  it  to  be  the  greatest  of  evils.     For 
though  he  does  not  know  what  shall   be  here- 
after, yet  he  does  know  that  injustice  and  dis- 
obedience to  one  who  is  better  than  ourselves, 
be  he  god  or  man,  is  evil  and  base.      Death,  he 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE   GEXTILE.  53 

says,  is  one  of  two  things.  Either  it  is  the  ex- 
tinction of  all  perception,  like  a  dreamless  sleep, 
and  then  it  is  a  wonderful  boon — for  who  would 
find  many  days  and  nights  in  his  life  to  be  pre- 
ferred to  a  night  which  he  has  slept  all  through 
without  a  dream  ? — or  it  is  the  migration  to  an- 
other place,  where  the  rest  of  the  dead  are  gath- 
ered, and  there  it  will  be  a  pleasure  to  mingle 
with  the  great  men  who  have  gone  before,  to 
l^ass  under  the  scrutiny  of  the  three  judges  who 
cannot  be  corrupted,  like  earthly  judges,  to  con- 
verse with  the  great  poets,  such  as  Orpheus  and 
Musaeus  and  Hesiod  and  Homer,  or  to  cross- 
examine  the  great  heroes  of  the  Trojan  war, 
and  to  compare  his  experience  with  theirs. 

Although  Plato's  doctrine  of  a  future  life  is 
troubled  by  the  Pythagorean  dream  of  a  metem- 
psychosis, still  he  does  not  hesitate  to  teach  in 
no  doubtful  language,  that  the  future  state  is  a 
state  of  rewards  and  punishments,  in  which  each 
man  receives  his  sentence,  according  to  the 
things  he  hath  done  in  the  body.  Those  re- 
wards and  punishments  are  not  arbitrary,  but 
follow  by  a  natural  law ;  for  the  soul  takes  with 
it  to  Hades  nothing  but  the  results  of  its  edu- 
cation and  growth,  which  immediately  begin  to 
manifest  their  effects.  In  the  magnificent  myth 
with  which  the  Phcedo  closes,  he  thus  expounds 
the  law  of  retribution  ; — r^'  When  the  dead  reach 


54  nniORTALITY. 

the  place  whither  their  genius  carries  them,  they 
obtain  their  sentence,  and  those,  whose  hves 
have  been  neither  very  good  nor  very  bad,  are 
conveyed  along  Acheron  to  the  Acherusian 
lake,  where  they  are  purified  of  wickedness  by 
punishment,  and  receive  the  reward  of  their 
good  deeds.  Those  who  are  judged  to  be  in- 
curably guilty,  owing  to  the  greatness  of  their 
sins,  are  thown  into  Tartarus,  from  which  they 
never  come  out.  Those  again,  whose  sins  are 
very  great,  but  not  past  all  cure,  are  thrown,  for 
so  it  must  be,  into  Tartarus  ;  but  after  a  year  they 
are  carried  by  Cocytus  or  Pyriphlegethon  to  the 
Acherusian  lake,  where  with  loud  cries  they  call 
on  those  whom  they  wronged,  beseeching  them 
for  pardon,  that  so  they  may  leave  their  place  of 
torment  and  come  to  them  ;  and  if  their  prayer 
is  heard,  it  is  well  ;  if  not,  they  return  to  their 
place  of  suffering,  for  they  gain  no  respite  till  it 
is  granted  by  those  whom  they  injured.  Those, 
lastly,  who  have  lived  with  conspicuous  holiness, 
are  they  who  are  freed  from  their  prison-house 
in  the  lower  realms,  and  rise  aloft  to  radiant 
habitations,  and  dwell  upon  the  earth  which  I 
have  described.  And  such  as  have  purified 
themselves  sufficiently  by  philosophy  live  wholly 
without  bodies  for  the  future,  and  rise  to  habi- 
tations more  glorious  than  these,  which  it  were 
hard  to  paint.  .  .  .  But   I  think  what    I   have 


TUE  HOPE   OF  THE   GENTILE.  55 

said  shows  that  we  must  strive  by  all  means  to 
gain  virtue  and  wisdom  in  our  lives.  The  prize 
is  glorious  and  the  hope  is  great."  The  myth 
in  the  Gorgias  is  not  less  striking  and  not  less 
explicit.  In  both  the  same  truths  are  enforced. 
As  Plato  has  insisted  in  the  Republic,  that  the 
brief  space  between  childhood  and  old  age  is  too 
short  for  the  reward  of  virtue,  so  now  he  show 
us,  how  both  virtue  and  vice  receive  their  just 
recompense  in  the  life  to  come.  He  sees  that 
punishment  may  be  exemplary  as  well  as  reme- 
dial. He  does  not  shrink  even  from  the  awful 
sentence  of  everlasting  woe,  pronounced  upon 
desperate  and  incurable  wickedness.  He  sees 
the  holy  and  the  just  crowned  with  everlasting 
felicity.  In  the  use  which  he  makes  of  these 
myths,  Plato  shows  his  power  as  a  religious 
teacher.  The  popular  allegories  for  him  con- 
tain the  profoundest  of  moral  truths.  They  are 
the  poetry  of  the.  conscience  and  of  the  heart. 
Surely  there  is  no  "  half  smile  playing  upon  the 
lips  of  the  divine  old  man  which  betrays  his 
scepticism  without  showing  his  contempt."* 
The  philosopher  and  the  moral  teacher  finds  his 
lessons  confirmed  by  the  beautiful  fictions  of  the 
popular  creed,  which  he  embellishes  and  exalts, 
and  reads  in  them  a  living:  confirmation  of  his 


't> 


Cousin,  (Eiivres  de  Platon,  i.  p.  179' 


56  niMORTALITY. 

teaching,  that  "  we  must  strive  by  all  means  to 
gain  virtue  and  wisdom  in  our  lives."  It  was  a 
noble  attempt  to  marry  the  wisdom  of  the  sage 
and  the  religion  of  the  vulgar,  to  show  that  rea- 
son did  not  contradict  faith,  but  that  the  truth, 
which  was  reached  through  the  conclusions  of 
the  intellect,  had  already  its  support  in  the  con- 
science and  in  the  instinctive  belief  of  mankind. 
So  far  as  philosophy  can  accomplish  the  task,  it 
may  be  said  that  Plato  has  established  by  solid 
reasoning  the  immateriality  of  the  soul,  the  abso- 
lute distinction  between  mind  and  matter.  The 
triumph  was  great ;  and  yet  Cicero  with  all  his 
admiration  for  Plato,  confesses  how  slight  an 
impression  such  reasoning  produced.  Plato,  he 
tells  us,  seems  to  have  convinced  himself,  and 
to  have  made  others  wish,  that  he  was  right.* 
"  Whilst  I  am  reading  his  treatise,"  he  says,  "  I 
assent  to  his  reasoning ;  when  I  lay  down  the 
book  and  think  over  the  question  of  immortality 
myself,  my  assent  slips  away  from  me."  f  But 
in  truth,  as  we  have  seen,  Socrates  himself 
shrinks  from  a  positive  affirmation  of  his  belief. 
And  it  is  evident,  as  has  been  remarked  by 
some  of  Plato's  most  accomplished  critics,  that 
no  reasoning  can  do  more  than  make  the  life 
to  come  probable.     "  Philosophy  demonstrates/' 

*Cic.  Tusc.  I.  21,  §  49.  tib.  I.  II,  §  25. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE   GENTILE.  57 

says  one  of  them,  "that  there  is  in  man  a  prin- 
ciple that  cannot  perish.  But  that  this  principle 
reappears  in  another  world  with  the  same  order 
of  faculties  and  the  same  laws  which  it  has  here, 
that  it  carries  with  it  there  the  consequences  of 
the  good  and  evil  actions  which  it  has  commit- 
ted   this  is  a  sublime  probability,  which 

does  not  admit  perhaps  of  rigorous  demonstra- 
tion, but  which  is  authorized  and  consecrated  by 
the  secret  trust  of  the  heart  and  the  universal 
consent  of  the  world."  * 

Yes,  a  sublime  probability,  and  "  probability  is 
the  very  guide  of  life."  And  yet  something  more 
is  necessary,  if  religion  is  to  lend  her  sanction  to 
morality.  If  the  future  life  is  to  sway  and  rule 
the  present  life,  if  a  man  is  to  sacrifice  the  plea- 
sures of  time  to  the  joys  of  eternity,  if  he  is  to 
resist  the  fascinations  of  sense  and  the  strong 
grasp  of  covetousness,  if  he  is  to  master  the 
swelling  of  passion,  and  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  the 
voice  which  bids  him  take  his  ease,  eat,  drink 
and  be  merry,  then  he  needs  something  more 
than  a  wavering  hope  to  be  the  anchor  of  his 
soul.  Then  he  needs  a  voice  that  he  can  re- 
cognize as  that  of  God,  to  confirm  his  doubts 
and  fears.  Then  he  needs  the  word  and  the 
promise  and  the  example  of  One,  who  rising 

*  Cousin,  CEuvres  de  Plato?:,  i.  p.  178. 


58  nniORTALITT. 

Himself  in  human  flesh  from  the  grave,  has 
brought  Life  and  Immortahty  to  Hght. 

If  our  examination  of  ancient  systems  of  be- 
hef  and  of  speculation  were  to  stop  here,  we 
might  conclude  with  Cicero  that  the  belief  in 
the  Immortality  of  the  soul  is  like  the  belief  in 
God,  universal.  But  we  must  not  omit  all  notice 
of  forms  of  religion  which  count  their  disciples 
by  millions.  The  East  as  well  as  the  West 
claims  our  consideration.  Whilst  Greece  was 
advancing  on  the  path  of  civilization,  another 
civilization  was  developing  itself  between  the 
Indus  and  the  Ganges.  Two  vast  rival  systems 
of  religious  belief  have  there  sprung  up,  and 
struggled  for  the  mastery,  the  system  of  the 
Brahmin,  and  the  system  of  the  Buddhist.  Full 
of  interest,  at  any  time,  to  the  student  of  man's 
nature  and  history,  these  systems  derive  a  fresh 
interest,  from  the  singular  coincidence  which 
they  often  present  with  the  course  of  modern 
speculation.  In  fact  it  is  not  too  much  to  say, 
that  "  the  history  of  mind  in  India,  corresponds  to 
the  same  history  in  Europe  :  "  and  that  "  Every 
system  that  has  appeared  in  the  West,  has  had 
its  counterpart  in  the  East."* 

As  in  Egypt,  and  in  Greece,  so  in  India  we 
can  trace  distinctly  the  development  of  doctrine. 

*  Hunt,  Pantheism.,  p.  18. 


TUE  HOPE   OF  THE    GENTILE.  59 

In  the  most  ancient  religious  poems  of  the 
Aryans,  in  the  earliest  Vedic  hymns,  the  future 
life  is  scarcely  mentioned  ;  the  fears  and  hopes 
of  the  present  life  occupy  the  foremost  place,  in 
the  midst  of  a  pantheistic  worship  of  the  forces 
of  nature,  not  wanting  either  in  grandeur  or  in 
poetry,  but  in  which  the  notion  of  a  wise  and 
righteous  Providence  can  scarcely  be  discerned. 
Even  there,  however,  we  meet  with  the  doctrine 
of  transmigrations,  though  in  a  form  less  extra- 
vagantly grotesque  than  that  which  it  subse- 
quently assumed.  And  there  too  is  the  germ 
of  future  recompense,  though  the  palm  is  given 
not  to  moral  virtue,  but  to  the  zealous  practice 
of  ceremonial  observances. 

In  the  more  matured  system  of  the  Brahmins, 
the  world  is  an  ever-fluctuating  development  of 
the  great  soul  of  Being ;  it  issues  from,  and  is  a 
part  of  Brahma  Himself,  as  the  stream  issues 
from  its  source,  as  the  tree  from  the  seed,  as  the 
spider's  web  from  the  spider.  The  universe  is 
the  theatre  of  a  perpetual  movement,  in  conse- 
quence of  v^hich  souls  find  themselves,  now 
nearer,  now  further  removed  from  their  native 
source.  They  pass  from  body  to  body,  they 
visit  in  succession  the  bodies  of  stones,  plants, 
animals,  gods,  men,  without  truce,  and  without 
repose,  doomed  according  to  their  merits  or  de- 
merits, to  ascend  or  descend  the  eternal  ladder, 


6o  nnioiiTALiTY. 

plunged  now  it  may  be  in  all  the  horrors,  ex- 
quisite and  prolonged,  of  the  eight  and  twenty 
hells,  or  raised  to  the  rank  of  higher  beings,  in 
an  existence  above  that  of  this  world,  till  at 
length  the  vast  sum  of  revolutions  being  com- 
pleted, they  are  absorbed  in  the  great  principle 
of  the  Universe,  the  immovable  Brahma,  in 
whose  immovable  void,  existence  is  the  only 
perfection,  and  the  only  bliss.* 

When  in  the  Vedanta,  the  question  is  asked, 
"  What  is  the  nature  of  that  absorbed  state 
which  the  souls  of  good  men  enjoy  after  death  ? " 
the  answer  is  :  "  It  is  a  participation  of  the 
Divine  nature,  where  all  passions  are  utterly 
unknown  and  consciousness  is  absorbed  in 
bliss." 

Everlasting  metempsychosis,  everlasting  evo- 
lution, with  everlasting  reabsorption,  this  is  the 
future  life  in  which  sixty  millions  of  the  human 
race  at  this  day  believe. 

Buddhism  was  a  reformation  of  Brahminism. 
With  the  exception  of  Christianity,  no  religious 
system  that  the  world  has  seen,  has  ever  pro- 
duced so  mighty  a  revolution,  has  ever  inculca- 
ted a  morality  so  pure,  or  breathed  so  Divine  a 
charity,  or  spoken  words  of  such  tender  compas- 
sion to  the  Pariah  and  the  outcast.     Its  founder 

*Taine,  Noiacciiix  Essaic  dc  Critiqtce  et  dVIisloirc,  pp.  327, 
32S. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE    GENTILE.  6 1 

Sakya  Muni  lived  some  five  centuries  before 
the  Christian  era.*  The  son  of  a  king,  and 
accustomed  to  all  the  pleasures  and  luxury 
of  an  oriental  court,  he  at  an  early  age  became 
profoundly  convinced  of  the  vanity  of  the  world. 
The  spectacle  of  the  miseries  of  life,  of  sickness, 
old  age  and  death,  touched  his  heart,  and  he  set 
himself  with  noble  purpose  to  deliver  men  from 
the  curse  which  weighed  upon  them.  With  this 
object  in  view,  he  made  no  distinction  of  caste 
or  race  or  sex.  He  broke  down  the  barriers  of 
prejudice  and  of  custom.  He  called  all  to  salva- 
tion, the  king  and  the  slave,  the  Brahmin  and 
the  Tschandala,  the  pure  and  the  impure,  his 
own  countrymen  and  strangers,  men  and  women. 
The  good  news  which  he  preached,  was  deliver- 
ance from  the  burden  of  existence.  Our  suffer- 
ings, he  said,  spring  from  our  passions,  and  are 
the  punishments  for  sins  committed  in  a  former 
state  of  existence.  Our  aim,  then,  must  be  to 
crush  our  passions,  to  crush  every  desire  which 
binds  us  to  life.  When  this  is  accomplished  we 
shall  find  rest,  we  shall  find  it  in  non-existence, 
in  freedom  from  that  existence  which  is  itself  a 
penalty  from  sin.  It  has  been  much  disputed 
whether  the  Nirvana,  the  final  rest  which  he 
promised  to  the  perfected  disciple,  is  or  is  not 

*  See  Earlhelemy  St.  Hilaire,  Le  Boitddha  et  le  Bottddhisine.  ■ 


62  niMORTALITY. 

equivalent  to  annihilation.  It  would  ill  become 
one,  who  has  not  made  a  study  of  the  original 
texts,  to  pretend  to  pronounce  a  decision  on  this 
question.  Great  authorities  are  arrayed  on 
either  side.  But  even  if  Sakya  Muni  himself 
proclaimed  annihilation  as  the  crown  and  reward 
of  perfection,  it  may  be  certainly  affirmed  that 
this  teaching  has  since  been  greatly  modified.* 
Nirvana  is  to  the  Buddhist  rather  the  negation 
and  opposite  of  the  present  existence,  than  an- 
nihilation in  the  sense  in  which  we  commonly 
understand  it.  It  is  that  state  "which  is  followed 
by  no  birth,  and  after  which  there  is  no  renew- 
ing of  the  miseries  of  existence.  It  is  beyond 
the  world  of  sensation  and  of  change.  Here 
there  is  coming  and  going,  change  and  motion, 
fulness  and  manifoldness,  combination  and  indi- 
viduality. In  Nirvana  is  rest  and  stillness, 
simplicity  and  unity  for  ever.  Here  are  birth, 
sickness,  age  and  death,  virtue  and  vice,  merit 
and  demerit ;  there,  there  is  Eternal  repose,  com- 
plete deliverance  from  existence  and  all  the  con- 
ditions of  existence.  The  soul  can  no  longer 
be  born,  and  therefore  no  longer  die.  The  '/' 
is  extinguished  as  plants  no  longer  watered,  as 

*  It  may  fairly  be  questioned  whether  Buddha  himself  taught 
nihilism,  but  if  he  did,  his  teaching  was  certainly  not  generally 
received.  See  Max  IMiiller,  Chips  from  a  Gcnnan  JVorkshoJy, 
Vol.  I.  p.  233. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE   GENTILE.  6;^ 

trees  whose  roots  have  been  dug  up  from  the 
earth,  or  as  the  Hght  goes  out  when  the  oil  fails 
in  the  lamp."  * 

Such,  roughly  sketched,  are  the  systems  of 
the  Brahmin  and  the  Buddhist,  such  is  their 
consolation  in  death,  such  their  hope  of  a  life  to 
come.  Widely  differing  in  many  respects,  the 
two  systems  are  alike  in  this,  that  they  both 
tend  to  the  destruction  of  the  individual  person- 
ality. The  one  destroys  the  individual  by 
plunging  him  in  the  Absolute  Being.  The 
other  destroys  him,  if  not  by  actual  annihilation, 
by  robbing  him  of  all  character,  of  all  thought, 
and  feeling,  and  will,  and  action.  Both  look  for 
something  after  death  ;  both  deny  the  only  im- 
mortality which  is  worth  contending  for,  the 
immortality  of  the  conscious  individual  life. 

We  have  directed  our  glance  in  tu.rn  to  Greece 
and  to  India,  to  the  West  and  to  the  East.  A 
day  came  in  the  history  of  the  world,  when  in 
consequence  of  the  great  political  events  which 
modified  ancient  society,  the  East  and  the  West 
met  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean.  Then 
took  place  that  wonderful  fusion  of  the  thoughts 
and  hopes  of  the  world,  all  the  fruits  of  which 
we  have  not  even  yet  gathered  ;  and  not  only 
did  the  East  and  the  West  meet,  but  at  the  same 

*  Hunt,  Puiii/tcisiii,  pp.  24,  25.  See  also  Tainc  at  supra,  p.  340. 


64  niJIOETALITr. 

epoch  religion  and  philosophy  stretched  each  to 
the  other  her  hand.  It  was  a  solemn  moment. 
What  was  the  result } 

Let  us  transport  ourselves  into  Greece  in 
the  fifth  century  of  our  era  *  Athens,  glorious 
Athens,  the  illustrious  mother  of  thought,  and 
of  the  arts,  was  near  to  her  fall ;  that  *  bright 
particular  star'  in  the  heaven  of  mind  was  about 
to  set  for  ever.  But  at  the  moment  when  the 
star  was  touching  the  horizon,  it  shot  forth  one 
last  gleam  of  surpassing  splendor.  A  numer- 
ous youth,  gathered  from  all  parts  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  crowded  the  amphitheatres  of  the  city, 
which  was  still  the  capital  of  the  intellectual 
world.  In  those  large  assemblies  were  heard 
the  words  of  a  man,  whom  some  venerated  as  a 
god.  He  styled  himself  the  Universal  Pontiff. 
He  was  the  most  esteemed  of  philosophers,  and 
the  most  erudite  of  priests  ;  he  seemed  to  sum 
up  in  his  person  the  whole  moral  and  intellec- 
tual growth  of  past  centuries,  all  philosophy  and 
all  religion.  The  name  of  this  man  was  Proclus. 
He  was  the  last  in  a  long  series  of  sages,  and 
his  doctrine  contained  the  result  of  four  centu- 
ries of  intellectual  toil.  This  doctrine  was  that 
of  the  famous  school  of  Alexandria.     To   form 

*  E.  Naville,  La  Vie  Eternelle,  to  whom  I  am  greatly  in- 
debted in  what  follows,  thougli  he  hardly  docs  justice  to  Proclus 
or  to  the  Alexandrian  School. 


THE  UOVE   OF  THE   GENTILE.  65 

that  school  East  and  West  had  united.  Into  it, 
as  into  some  vast  reservoir,  two  mighty  streams 
had  poured  their  treasures  of  thought  and  learn- 
ing. It  was  the  teaching  of  this  school  that 
Mythology  was  the  bark  and  rind  of  truth,  and 
that  Pantheism  was  the  inner  heart  of  truth. 
For  the  living  God,  the  First  cause  of  the  Uni- 
verse, the  Alexandrians  substituted  an  abstract 
and  barren  conception,  a  God  without  intelli- 
gence, without  liberty,  without  power.  Far  from 
making  any  successful  attempt  to  assure  to  us 
immortality  after  death,  the  whole  practical 
result  of  their  doctrine  was  to  do  away  with  such 
a  belief  The  Greek  myths,  those  graceful  fables, 
which  gave  life  and  movement  to  all  around, 
were  no  more  than  the  airy  and  transparent 
clothing  of  the  gloomy  thoughts  and  conceptions 
of  Asia.  The  dogmas  of  the  Brahmins  were 
erected  under  a  different  form  in  the  country  of 
Homer  and  of  Plato.  Such  was  the  result  of 
the  meeting  between  the  thought  of  the  East 
and  the  thought  of  the  West. 

It  was  a  crisis  in  the  intellectual  progress  of 
the  world.  Ancient  wisdom  seemed  to  be 
gathering  all  its  forces,  as  if  again  to  assert  its 
pre-eminence.  Never  was  it  animated  by  a 
deeper  enthusiasm  of  activit}^,  never  had  it' 
armed  itself  for  a  more  resolute,  a  more  des- 
perate struggle.     The  representatives  of  the  an- 


66  nnioETALiTr. 

cient  world  strove  in  vain  to  marry  the  brilliant 
fictions  of  fable  to  the  profound  conceptions  of 
genius.  Another  and  a  mightier  power  was 
sweeping  past  them,  and  advancing  to  conquests 
for  which  they  could  not  dare  to  hope.  And  why  .'' 
— because  in  a  distant  province,  four  centuries 
before,  One  who  had  studied  neither  the  wisdom 
of  the  East  nor  the  philosophy  of  the  West,  One 
whose  garb  and  speech  were  those  of  a  Galilean 
peasant,  had  preached  eternal  life  and  the  resur- 
rection from  the  dead  to  a  few  boatmen  on  the 
Lake  of  Gennesareth  ;  because  a  man,  named 
Paul  of  Tarsus,  forgetting  his  Greek  and  Jewish 
lore,  had  been  content  to  know  nothing  else  but 
Jesus  crucified  and  risen  from  the  dead  ;  because 
at  the  preaching  of  this  word,  there  had  been 
kindled  in  hearts  far  and  wide.  East  and  West, 
North  and  South,  a  hope  so  full  of  immortality, 
that  men  went  to  meet  martyrdom,  as  they 
would  have  gone  to  a  festival,  not  because  they 
were  weary  of  this  world,  but  that  they  might 
attain  to  the  palm  of  an  endless  life.  Nothing 
could  arrest  the  development  of  the  new  doc- 
trine. The  seed  had  become  a  sapling,  the  sap- 
ling had  shot  up  and  spread  itself  into  a 
mighty  and  umbrageous  tree.  Just  as  the  pine 
of  the  forest  stretching  its  branches  to  the 
sun  covers  with  its  shadow  the  lesser  under- 
growth, killing   the  vegetation  whose   nourish- 


THE  HOPE    OF  THE   GE STILE.  67 

ment  it  absorbs,  so  Christianity,  as  it  grew, 
robbed  of  air  and  light  the  gods  of  Olympus, 
and  covered  the  earth  with  the  fragments  of  an- 
cient theories,  all  whose  life  it  had  drained,  all 
whose  meaning  it  had  gathered  into  its  own 
bosom.  Have  we  ever  tried  to  picture  to  our- 
selves the  struggle  of  which  the  world  was  at 
that  time  the  theatre  ?  Have  we  ever  tried  to 
conceive  what  must  have  been  the  feelings  of 
the  citizens  of  Rome,  when  that  proud  city  was 
asked  to  renounce  all  that  pomp,  in  which  the 
ceremonies  of  religion  lent  splendor  and  dignity 
to  the  service  of  the  State,  that  Capitol  in  which 
were  gathered  the  spoils  of  the  Universe,  those 
triumphs  in  which  the  princes  of  the  world  did 
homage  to  the  majesty  of  the  sovereign  people? 
Can  we  understand  what  must  have  been  the 
feelings  of  those  young  men,  who  were  bidden 
to  give  up  their  pleasures,  their  festivals  which 
were  the  charm  of  their  life,  the  brilliant  poetry 
which  fascinated  their  imagination,  and  all  this 
for  a  word  rugged  and  uncouth  as  it  was  new, 
for  a  message  of  which  it  might  justly  be 
doubted,  whether  it  were  in  a  greater  degree 
foolishness  to  the  wise,  or  a  stumblingblock  to 
men  of  the  world  ?  And  yet  that  word  had  con- 
quered. The  ancient  religions,  long  assailed 
alike  by  the  force  of  reason  and  by  the  protests 
of  conscience,  at  length  fell,  as  Dagon  fell  before 


6S  niMoiiTALiTr. 

the  Ark,  on  the  day  when  outside  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem,  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  nailed  to  the 
cross,  in  the  midst  of  women  who  bewailed  Him 
and  a  people  who  derided  Him.  Thus  did  the 
Wisdom  of  the  old  world  pale  before  the  Word 
which  shed  light  upon  life  and  immortality. 

Yes,  the  foolishness  of  God  is  wiser  than  the 
wisdom  of  men.  It  was  so  then,  it  is  so  now. 
System  after  system  has  sprung  up  and  perish- 
ed. Even  in  the  last  few  years,  in  the  full  light 
of  Christianity,  we  have  seen  men  building  up, 
with  a  force  of  genius  worthy  of  a  better  cause, 
theories  of  metempsychosis  and  transmigration, 
pretending  to  explain  the  world  and  man  with- 
out any  recognition  of  God  and  of  Providence, 
denying  to  the  human  race  the  hope  of  immor- 
tality, substituting  the  immortality  of  the  race, 
or  of  works,  of  matter  and  of  force,  for  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul,  and  a  personal  existence 
after  death.  We  listen  with  fainting  heart  to 
these  prophets  of  destruction.  We  listen  per- 
chance more  hopefully  to  the  advocates  of  a 
better  wisdom,  who  yet  bid  us  shut  our  Bibles, 
because  Reason  suffices  of  herself  to  place  on 
sure  grounds  our  eternal  hope,  to  construct  for 
us  the  charter  of  our  immortality.  And  as  we 
turn  away,  with  our  doubts  and  fears  still  thick 
about  us,  our  misgivings  and  perplexities  unal- 
layed,  our  eye  falls  on  the  page,  written  from  his 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE   GEXTILE.  69 

prison  in  Rome,  by  one  of  whom  the  world  was 
not  worthy.  He  was  no  dreamer,  he  was  no 
fanatic.  He  was  a  man  of  cultivated  intellect,  of 
large  heart,  of  profound  convictions.  He  writes 
to  a  friend  in  the  near  prospect  of  death,  but  no 
shadow  of  gloom  darkens  his  spirit ;  there  is  no 
faltering,  no  fear,  but  the  light  of  eternity  is  in 
his  eye,  and  the  great  peace  of  God  is  in  his 
heart,  and  it  is  thus  he  wTites  :  "  I  am  now 
ready  to  be  offered  up,  and  the  time  of  my  de- 
parture is  at  hand.  I  have  fought  the  good 
fight,  I  have  finished  my  course,  I  have  kept  the 
faith.  Henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  the 
crown  of  righteousness,  which  the  Lord,  the 
righteous  Judge,  shall  give  me  at  that  day." 
And  if  you  ask.  Whence  this  high  confidence, 
this  unshaken  hope,  this  holy  joy.'*  the  answer 
is  to  be  found  in  other  words  in  the  same  letter  i 
"  I  know  whom  I  have  believed  ;  I  am  the  herald 
and  the  apostle  of  Him  who  has  abolished  death, 
and  brought  Life  and  Immortality  to  light." 


LECTURE    TIL 

THE  HOPE    OF   THE    JEW. 

Luke  XX.  ij,  38. 

Now  that  the  dead  are  raised,  even  Moses  shewed  at  the 
bush,  when  he  calleth  the  Lord  the  God  of  Abrahaiii, 
and  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Jacob.  For  he  is 
?iot  a  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living  :  for  all  live 
1171  to  him. 

We  have  already  reviewed  some  of  the  prin- 
cipal systems  of  Gentile  belief,  and  Gentile 
speculation,  concerning  the  life  to  come.  Apart 
from  any  other  value  which  they  may  have, 
they  are  witnesses  for  God,  they  are  signs  of 
man's  moral  nature,  evidences  of  an  inner  reve- 
lation of  the  heart  and  conscience,  v/hich  pro- 
claims a  future  life  and  a  future  judgment. 
When  we  turn  from  these  beliefs  and  specula- 
tions to  those  records  of  Jewish  faith  which  we 
have  in  the  Old  Testament,  we  might  certainly 
and  reasonably  expect  that,  if  here  we  have  a 
more  distinct,  personal  revelation  of  God,  here 
also  a  clearer  light  would  rest  on  the  joroblem 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE  JE]V.  J  I 

we  are  considering.  For  the  knowledge  of  God 
and  the  knowledge  of  man  are  inseparably  as- 
sociated. Whatever  throws  light  on  the  one 
must  throw  light  on  the  other  also.  In  propor- 
tion as  the  belief  in  God's  nature  and  attributes 
is  pure  and  elevated,  in  the  same  proportion 
will  man  form  a  right  conception  of  his  relation 
to  God,  and  therefore  of  his  future  destiny. 
And  this  expectation  would  be  strengthened,  by 
observing  that  there  is  a  vital  continuity  be- 
tween Judaism  and  Christianity,*  that  the  New 
Law  is  in  some  of  its  most  essential  features 
but  a  development  and  spiritual  interpretation 
of  the  Old.  The, God  of  Moses  is  the  God  of 
Christians  ;  the  general  principles  of  morality — 
notwithstanding  some  obvious  and  admitted  ex- 
ceptions— are  the  same  in  the  Pentateuch  and 
the  Gospel.  In  both,  there  is  the  same  close 
and  intimate  connection  between  morality  and 
religion  ;  in  both,  the  same  precept  to  love  our 
neighbor,  flowing  out  of  the  one  great  primary 
command  to  love  God  ;  in  both,  the  same  trust 
in  the  infinite  wisdom  and  justice  and  goodness 
of  God,  the  same  submission  to  His  providence, 
the  same  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer.  It 
would  have  seemed  but  natural  therefore,  that  a 
judgment  to  come  which  forms  so  powerful  a 

*  This  has  been  strikingly  illustrated  in  Lord  Hatherley's  re- 
cently Dublished  Volume,  "  The  Continuity  of  Scripture." 


72  nnroETALTTr. 

sanction  in  the  Christian  scheme,  should  have 
had  its  due  place  in  the  sanctions  of  the  Law  of 
Moses. 

And  yet  it  is  remarkable  that,  whilst  not  only 
the  unity  of  God,  but  the  holiness,  the  truth, 
the  loving  mercy  of  God  are  presented  in  the 
Old  Testament,  in  a  manner  not  very  unlike 
that  in  which  they  are  presented  in  the  New, 
and  in  the  most  marked  contrast  with  the  gross 
and  revolting  conceptions  to  be  found  in  the  re- 
ligious systems  of  the  heathen,  and  the  feeble 
and  imperfect  conceptions  of  the  most  enlight- 
ened of  pagan  philosophers, — it  is  remarkable,  I 
say,  that  so  little  should  be  revealed  concerning 
the  final  destiny  of  man.  The  Future  Life,  as  a 
doctrine,  occupies  no  prominent  place  in  the  re- 
ligion of  Moses  and  the  Prophets.  The  immor- 
tality of  the  soul  is  neither  argued  nor  affirmed. 
The  resurrection  of  the  body  is  kept  in  the 
background,  and  not  fully  disclosed  till  towards 
the  end  of  the  Old  Testament  dispensation. 
Darkness  rests  upon  the  grave  and  upon  all  be- 
yond it ;  and  the  rewards  and  punishments  of 
the  Future  Life  are  either  unknown,  or  appa- 
rently exercise  no  practical  influence  on  men's 
conduct  here.  At  first  sight,  and  on  a  cursory 
examination,  there  seems  to  be  no  advance 
whatever  upon  the  pagan  systems,  so  far  as  this 
article  of  faith  is  concerned. 


THE  UOPE   OF  THE  JEW.  73 

In  the  Pentateuch  the  silence  is  profound. 
Only  a  hint  is  dropt  here  and  there,  suggestive 
of  a  belief,  which  is  never  explicitly  stated. 
The  immediate  derivation  of  man's  life  from 
God,*  the  translation  of  Enoch,  vA\o  was  taken 
early  from  the  world  because  he  pleased  God,t 
the  prayer  of  the  dying  Jacob,J  the  wish  ex- 
pressed by  Balaam, — who  however  was  a  Gen- 
tile, not  a  Jew, — that  he  might  die  the  death  of 
the  righteous,§  these  are  all,  or  nearly  all,  the 
intimations,  certainly  neither  very  many  nor 
very  clear,  of  hopes  reaching  beyond  this  world, 
to  be  found  in  the  Books  of  Moses.  In  later 
Books,  the  recognition  of  another  life  grows 
somewhat  more  distinct.  There  we  find,  for  in- 
stance, the  belief  that  they  who  are  separated  by 
death  shall  meet  again  in  another  life,  and  this 
thought  was  David's  consolation,  when  the 
child  he  loved  was  'taken  from  him.||  We  find 
even  a  belief,  that  it  was  possible  for  the  dead 
to  revisit  the  earth,  and  hold  converse  with 
those  that  they  had  known  here,  as  in  the  ap- 
pearance of  Samuel  to  Saul.^T  And  so  far  there 
would  seem  to  be  evidence,  that  the  Jew,  what- 
ever other  conceptions  he  might  form  of  the  un- 
seen world,  felt  assured  at  least,  that  the  soul 

*  Gen.  ii.  7.  t  Gen.  v.  24,  comp.  Ecclus.  xliv.  16. 

X  Gen.  xlix.  18.  ^  Num.  xxiii.  10. 

II  2  Sam.  xii.  23.  IT  I  Sam.  xxviii. 


74  nniORTALITY. 

did  not  perish  with  the  body,  that  there  was 
a  true  continuation  of  personal  existence  after 
death.  But  nevertheless,  in  the  near  prospect 
of  death,  the  other  world  is  even  to  faithful 
spirits  full  of  gloom  and  terror.  The  represen- 
tations of  Sheol,  in  the  religious  poetry  of  the 
nation,  are  not  very  different  from  the  represen- 
tations of  Hades  among  the  earlier  Greeks. 
The  same  obscurity  hangs  over  the  dwelling  of 
the  dead  ;  there  is  the  same  recoil  from  its 
dreary  darkness.  Read  such  complaints  as 
these  : 

"  What  profit  is  there  in  my  blood,  when  I  go  down  to 
the  pit  ? 
Shall  the  dust  give  thanks  to  Thee  ? 
Shall  it  declare  Thy  truth  ?"* 

"  In  death  there  is  no  remembrance  of  thee, 

In   the   unseen   world    who    shall    give    Thee 
thanks  ?"t 

"  My  life  draweth  nigh  unto  the  unseen  world, 
I  am  counted  with  them  that  go  down  into  the  pit 

Like  the  slain  lying  in  the  grave,... 
Whom  Thou  rememberest  no  more, 

But  they  are  cut  off  from  Thy  hand."| 

"  Wilt  Thou  show  wonders  unto  the  dead  1 
Shall  the  shades  below  arise  and  give  Thee  thanks  ? 
Shall  Thy  loving-kindness  be  told  in  the  grave, 

*  Ps.  XXX.  9.  t  Ps.  vi.  5.  X  Ps.  Ixxxviii.  3 — 5" 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE  JEW,  75 

Thy  faithfulness  in  destruction  ? 
Shall  Thy  wonders  be  known  in  the  dark  ? 

And  Thy  righteousness  in  the  land  of  forgctful- 
ness  ?'  * 

Or  read  again  the  elegy  of  Hezekiah,  written 
on  his  recovery  from  sickness  : 

"  I  said  in  the  cutting  off  of  my  days, 

I  shall  go  to  the  gates  of  the  unseen  world... 

I  said,  I  shall  not  see  Jah, 

(Even)  Jah  in  the  land  of  the  living 

I  shall  behold  man  no  more  with  the  inhabitants  of 

the  world. 
****** 

The  unseen  world  cannot  give  Thee  thanks. 

Death  cannot  celebrate  Thee  : 

They  that  go  down  into  the  pit  cannot  hope  for  Thy 
truth. 

The  living,  the  living,  he  shall  give  Thee  thanks. 
As  I  do  this  day  ; 

<'The)  father  to  (the)  children  shall  make  known  con- 
cerning Thy  truth."  f 

I  do  not  insist  here  upon  the  language  of  the 
Preacher  asking  in  utter  perplexity  if  there  be 
any  difference  between  the  death  of  man  and 
the  death  of  the  brute.f  For  his  words  are 
manifestly  the  utterance,  not  of  his  higher,  but 
of  his  lower  self.  A  worldly  life,  devotion  to 
material  objects,  the  pursuit  of  selfish  ends,  had 

*   Ps.  Ixxxviii.  10 — 12,  t  Is.   xxxviii.  lo,  II,  l8,  19. 

X  Eccl.  iii.  21. 


76  IMMORTALITY. 

engendered  that  cynical  scepticism  which,  los- 
ing its  hold  on  God,  loses  also  its  hold  on  im- 
mortality. And  before  the  writer  closes  that 
journal  of  his  inner  life,  you  see  that  faith  has 
vanquished  doubt,  and  that  in  the  light  of  that 
triumph  he  can  look  beyond  death  and  the 
grave.  But  take  only  such  passages  as  these  I 
have  read,  and  what  is  the  impression  left  upon 
the  mind  ?  Is  not  the  picture  dark  as  that  in 
Homer  ?  The  dead  are  without  sensation  and 
without  hope,  forgotten  of  God,  and  unable  to 
praise  Him.  It  may  be  said,  indeed,  that  in 
such  passages,  sickness  and  pain  and  distress  of 
mind  have  wrought  their  natural  effect,  and  that 
the  dark  colors  of  the  picture  are  the  unhealthy 
projection  of  a  disturbed  and  melancholy  mood. 
Yet  one  feature  at  least  is  the  same  in  another 
song,  where  the  feeling  expressed  is  anything 
but  that  of  dejection  or  despondency.  It  is  in  a 
liturgical  Psalm,  it  is  in  a  Psalm  sung  by  the 
whole  congregation  gathered  before  God  in 
Zion,  it  is  in  the  midst  of  a  loud  strain  of 
triumph  and  thankfulness  and  exultation,  that 
we  meet  with  such  lines  as  these  : 

"  The  dead  cannot  praise  Jah, 
Neither  all  they  that  go  down  into  silence,"* 

■^  Ps.  cxv.  17. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE  JEW.  yj 

It  cannot  be  denied,  then,  that  so  far  as  any 
distinct  knozvledge  of  a  Future  Life  went,  the 
Jew  had  no  advantage  over  the  Gentile.  Like 
the  Gentile  he  thought  that  in  some  form,  he 
knew  not  what,  his  existence  would  be  prolonged 
after  death.  To  him,  as  to  the  Gentile,  Sheol 
was  a  gloomy,  sunless  abode,  and  life  in  this 
world  more  blessed  than  life  in  the  next  even 
for  the  righteous.  But  there  is  one  marked  and 
characteristic  difference  between  the  thought  of 
the  Jew,  and  the  thought  of  the  Greek,  as  they 
look  upon  death.  Both  chng  to  life,  both  recoil 
from  the  awful  shadow  that  sits  at  the  portal  of 
the  grave.  But  the  Jew  clings  to  life,  not  for 
the  sake  of  its  pleasures  or  its  gifts,  but  because 
here  he  can  know  and  love  and  praise  God ;  he 
hates  death,  because  there  he  is  cut  off  from 
God,  forgotten  of  His  hand.  The  Greek  clings 
to  life,  because  it  is  life,  because  the  sun  is 
bright,  and  there  is  much  animal  and  sensible 
enjoyment ;  he  hateS  death,  because  with  death 
all  his  earthly  pleasures  are  extinguished. 
The  thought  of  God  is  far  from  him,  the  thought 
of  this  world  only  is  in  his  heart. 

With  conceptions  thus  imperfect  respecting 
existence  in  the  unseen  world,  we  cannot  be 
surprised  that  the  doctrine  of  a  fiiULve  retribiUion 
is,  at  least  during  the  earlier  periods,  but  vague- 
ly hinted  at  in  the  Old  Testament     Moreover, 


78  UnrORTALITY. 

the  promises  of  temporal  prosperity  for  the 
good,  and  the  threat  of  punishment,  swift  and 
visible  in  this  world  for  the  wicked,  tended  no 
doubt  to  fix  men's  gaze  on  the  present  scene, 
and  to  darken,  if  not  absolutely  to  hide  from 
them,  the  future  recompense.  Hence  the  judg- 
ment upon  the  wicked  is  not  misery  in  hell,  but 
speedy  extinction  here.  When  the  Psalmist  ex- 
claims in  triumph,  "  The  wicked  shall  be  turned 
into  hell,"* — it  is  the  unseen  world,  Sheol,  not 
the  place  of  torment,  Gehenna,  •  of  which  he 
speaks,  and  what  he  anticipates  is,  not  that  the 
wicked  will  be  punished  hereafter,  but  that  they 
will  speedily  come  to  an  end  here,  and  be  cast 
into  the  abode  of  darkness  and  forge'tfulness. 
Even  in  a  Psalm  like  the  49th,  where  the  con- 
trast is  so  striking  between  the  rich  in  this 
world,  who  in  their  folly  live  like  the  brutes,  and 
think  to  build  for  themselves  an  immortality 
here,  and  the  servant  of  God,  sustaining  his 
faith  in  the  hope  of  everlasting  union  with  God, 
there  is  nothing  said  of  future  punishment. 

*  Ps.  ix.  17.  Yet,  owing  to  the  ambiguity  of  our  English 
word  "hell,'*'  which,  though  now  denoting  commonly  the 
place  of  torment,  originally  meant  nothing  more  than  the  sepa- 
rate state  of  spirits,  the  hidden  place,  without  reference  to  bliss 
or  woe,  this  text  is  usually  quoted  in  our  pulpits,  as  teaching  the 
future  punishment  of  the  wicked.  I  may  be  allowed  to  refer  to 
my  Commentary  for  an  exposition  of  this,  and  the  other  pas- 
sages, quoted  in  this  Lecture  from  the  Psalms. 


THE  HOPE  OF  THE  JEW.  79 

"  Like  sheep  they  are  gathered  to  the  unseen  world, 
•  Death  is  their  shepherd  : 

And  the  upright  have  dominion  over  them  in  the 
morning  ; 
And  their  beauty  shall  the  unseen  world  consume, 
That  it  have  no  more  dwelling-place." 

Whatever  sense  be  attached  to  the  morning — 
whether  the  morning  of  deliverance  for  those 
who  have  been  sighing  as  it  were  in  a  night  of 
misery  and  suffering,  crushed  and  trodden  down 
by  their  oppressors,  or  the  morning  of  the  resur- 
rection, when  the  triumph  of  the  righteous  shall 
be  complete,  when  the  tables  shall  be  turned, 
and  they  and  not  the  wicked  shall  have 
dominion,  still  defeat  and  darkness,  not  groans 
and  despair,  are  the  portion  of  the  unjust.  It  is 
the  same  in  the  73rd  Psalm.  The  problem  of 
life  which  there  weighed  so  heavily  upon  the 
Psalmist's  heart  was  this,  that  the  constant 
prosperity  of  the  wicked,  the  constant  suffering 
of  the  righteous,  seemed  to  impugn  the  very 
righteousness  of  God.  The  facts  of  the  world 
were  a  glaring  contradiction  to  His  government. 
It  was  this  which  perplexed  the .  Psalmist's 
spirit,  as  he  strove  to  reconcile  those  facts  with 
his  conscience,  and  his  conscience  with  his 
faith.  And  when  at  last,  tried  and  shaken,  and 
well  nigh  swept  from  his  foothold  by  the  waves 
of  doubt,  he  finds  a  shelter  in  the  sanctuary  of 


8o  IMMORTALITY. 

God  from  the  wreck  which  threatened  him,  still 
the  light  which  is  cast  on  the  justice  of  God 
falls  rather  on  retribution  in  this  life  than  on  re- 
tribution in  the  life  to  come. 

'•  Oh  how  suddenly  are  they  destroyed  as  in  a  moment ; 
They  come  to  an  end,  they  are  cut  off  because  of  ter- 
rors ; 
As  one  despiseth  a  dream  when  he  awaketh, 
(So)  Thou  O  Lord,  when  Thou  arousest  Thyself,  de- 
spisest  their  image." 

The  wicked  perish  in  the  very  bosom  of  their 
prosperity,  their  end  is  as  sudden  as  it  is  fearful, 
their  hard,  selfish,  unloving  life  is  gone,  like  a 
hideous  dream,  which  in  our  waking  moments 
we  forget.  No  trace  is  left  of  that  image,  which 
once  seemed  so  fair  and  so  proud.  God  has 
poured  His  contempt  upon  it,  and  it  has  van- 
ished from  the  earth. 

Even  in  the  magnificent  song  of 'triumph 
which  the  prophet  Isaiah  raises  over  the  King 
of  Babylon,  where  he  pictures  in  language,  the 
poetic  force  and  vividness  of  which  have  never 
been  surpassed,  the  descent  of  the  overthrown 
monarch  into  Hades,  the  judgment  which  falls 
upon  him  belongs  more  to  this  life  than  to  the 
next : 

"  Hell  [Sheol,  the  unseen  world]  is  moved  from  beneath 
for  thee, 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE  JEW,  8 1 

To  meet  thee  at  thy  coming. 

It  stirreth  up  for  thee  the  shades  below, 

All  the  mighty  of  the  earth  : 

It  maketh  to  arise  from  their  thrones 

All  the  kings  of  the  nations. 

All  of  them  answer  and  say  unto  thee  : 

Thou  also  art  become  weak  as  we  ! 

Thou  art  made  like  unto  us  ! 

Thy  pomp  is  brought  down  to  Sheol, 

The  music  of  thy  harps. 

Under  thee  the  worm  is  spread, 

And  worms  cover  thee. 

How  hast  thou  fallen  from  heaven, 

O  Lucifer,  son  of  the  morning  ! 

How  art  thou  cast  down  to  the  earth, 

Thou  that  didst  lord  it  over  the  nations  !"* 

I  do  not  forget  that  this  is  the  language  of 
poetry,  and  the  language  of  poetry,  it  will  be 
said,  is  not  to  be  pressed.  But  so  far  as  we 
catch  here  any  glimpse  into  the  unseen  state,  it 
is  a  state  very  different  from  that  which  our 
Christian  belief  is  wont  to  portray,  it  is  a  state 
in  which  even  the  externals  of  the  present  life 
are  in  some  measure  at  least  prolonged.  The 
kings  of  the  earth  are  still  kings  below,  each 
one  sitting  on  his  throne.  They  have  the 
memory  of  their  former  greatness,  they  triumph 
in  the  fall  of  a  proud  and  oppressive  rival,  who 
comes  to  take  his  place  among  them,  but  who  in 

*  Is.  xiv.  9 — 12. 


82  IMMORTALITY. 

that  abode  of  darkness  can  exercise  no  sove- 
reignty, and  who  shorn  of  his  power  can  inspire 
no  terror. 

I  am  not  aware  that  there  is  a  single  passage 
/  in  the  Old  Testament,  which  represents  the  un- 
seen world  as  a  place  of  punishment  for  the  un- 
godly. The  final  judgment  is  indeed  announced 
in  clear  terms  by  the  prophet  Daniel,  but  he  is 
speaking  of  retribution,  not  as  following  imme- 
diately on  the  separation  of  the  soul  from  the 
body,  but  as  following  on  the  sentence  pro- 
nounced after  the  resurrection.  And  let  me 
say  in  passing,  does  not  this  fact,  that  so  impene- 
trable a  cloud  of  darkness  rests  on  the  future 
condition  of  the  wicked,  account,  partly  at  least, 
for  much  of  that  language  which  has  so  often 
shocked  sensitive  minds,  in  which  Jewish  bards 
and  prophets  cry  out  for  vengeance,  on  proud 
tyrants  and  faithless  friends  : 

"  Let  death  come  hastily  upon  them, 
Let  them  go  down  aUve  into  Sheol."* 

"  Let  his  days  be  few, 
And  let  another  take  his  office. "I 

"  The  righteous  shall  rejoice  when  he  seeth  their  ven- 
geance. 
He   shall  wash   his   footsteps    in    the    blood   of    the 
wicked  ".'']: 

*  Ps.  Iv.  15.  t  Ps.  cix.  8.  X  Ps.  Iviii.  10. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE  JEW.  S^ 

May  it  not  be  pleaded  in  justification  of  those, 
who,  hating  wickedness  with  all  their  hearts, 
saw  it  great  and  prosperous  in  this  world,  and 
knew  not  its  terrible  chastisement  in  the  world 
to  come,  that  they  longed  to  see  God's 
righteous  judgment  executed  here,  and  hoped 
themselves  to  be  the  instruments  of  His  justice  ? 
Is  it  not  exactly  what  we  might  expect  ?  If  to 
the  saints  of  old,  as  to  us,  had  been  preached  "  a 
worm  that  dieth  not  and  a  fire  that  is  not 
quenched,"  w^ould  not  some  accents  of  sorrow, 
or  of  intercession,  have  mingled  with  their  in- 
dignation ?  Would  no  balm  of  pity  have  been 
shed  upon  their  verse,  no  prayer  for  forgiveness 
have  softened,  or  turned  away  those  impreca- 
tions, wdiich  now  are  poured  in  a  hot  lava- 
stream  upon  the  head  of  the  wicked  ?  Surely 
had  the  eyes  of  the  Hebrew  Poet  been  opened 
to  see  the  terrors  of  the  world  to  come,  his 
prayer  would  have  been  not,  '  Blot  them  out  of 
Thy  book,'  but  rather  with  Him  who  hung  upon 
the  cross,  *  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know 
not  what  they  do.'* 

But  although  the  next  w^orld  is  itself  shrouded  \ 
in  darkness,  and  although  there  is  no  positive 
revelation  concerning  future  happiness  for  the 

*  I  have  entered  more  fully  on  this  subject  in  the  Introduc- 
tion to  my  Commentary  on  the  Psalms,  Vol.  I.  p.  Ixxiii.  and  in 
a  note  on  Vs.  xxxv.  22. 


O.I.  nnioiiTALiTr. 

good,  and  future  misery  for  the  wicked,  yet 
Faith  ever  and  anon  asserts  her  prerogative,  as 
the  evidence  of  things  not  seen,  the  confident 
assurance  of  things  hoped  for.  The  hope  of  the 
righteous  is  not  altogether  hidden  from  their 
eyes,  like  the  doom  of  the  wicked.* 

When  the  saint  of  God,  in  the  midst  of  the 
discouragements  and  sorrows  of  this  life,  looks 
for  refuge  to  God,  he  wins  for  himself  bright, 
though  passing,  glimpses  of  a  happiness  in  store 
for  him  beyond  the  grave.  A  risen  Saviour  has 
not  yet  indeed  taken  the  sting  from  death,  or 
robbed  the  grave  of  its  victory,  but  the  faith 
which  clings  to  God  can  rest  assured,  that  God 
will  not  forsake  it,  but  will  make  the  soul  that 
trusts  in  Him,  partaker  of  His  own  immortality. 
It  was  in  this  faith,  that  David  resisted  the 
temptation  which  beset  him,  to  forego  his 
heavenly  hope  for  an  earthly.  The  nations  of 
the  world,  by  whom  he  was  surrounded,  were 
distin2:uished  in  art  and  science,-  and  consDicu- 
ous  in  all  that  could  give  lustre  and  strength  to 
empire.  Wealth  and  commerce,  luxury  and 
power,  contributed  to  recommend  and  illustrate 
the  seductive  idolatries  of  the  vast  and  aggres- 
sive kingdoms,  by  which  the  Syrian  shepherds 
were  hemmed  in.     The  god  of  this  w^orld  was 

'^  See  note  on  Ps.  Ixxiii.  i8. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE  JEW.  85 

ready  with  his  whisper,  'All  these  things  will  I 
give  thee,  if  thou  wilt  fall  down  and  worship 
me.'  And  how  was  it  that  the  fascination  was 
broken  ?  How  was  it  that  the  Poet-king  could 
say  with  righteous  scorn, 

"  Their  drink-offerings  of  blood  will  I  not  offer, 
Neither  take  their  names  upon  my  lips  "?* 

It  was  because  he  had  tasted  a  purer  joy,  a 
holier  pleasure.  It  was  because  he  could  say  to 
the  eternal  God, 

"  Thou  art  my  Lord  : 
I  have  no  good  beyond  Thee." 

It  was  because  he  could  claim  for  himself  a 
blessing  like  that  of  Levi, 

"  Jehovah  Himself  is  my  portion," 
and  triumphantly  exclaim, 

"  I  have  set  Jehovah  always  before  me  ; 
Because  He  is   at  my  right  hand  I  shall  not  be 
moved." 

Could  he  dream  for  a  moment,  that  death  should 
sever  between  him  and  his  God  ?  In  that  hour 
of  resolve,  and  joyful  self-consecration,  and  ar- 
-^  dent  cleaving  of  the  soul  to  God,  could  it  doubt 
its  own  immortality }  The  life  of  God  which 
Vv^as  its  life,  was  its  own  sufficient  and  trium- 

*  Ps.  xvi.  4. 


S6  IMMORTALITY. 

phant  witness.  That  life  could  never  perish. 
The  breath  of  God  was  not  breathed  into  man 
in  vain.  It  must  impart  even  to  the  frail  taber- 
nacle, which  it  had  helped  to  fashion,  something 
of  its  own  eternity.  Hope  resting  on  God 
made  all  the  future  its  own  : 

*'  Thou  wilt  make  me  know  the  path  of  Life, 
Fulness  of  Joy  in  Thy  Presence, 
Pleasures  at  Thy  right  hand  for  evermore." 

No  philosophic  reasoning  comes  to  the  aid  of 
the  Hebrew,  as  he  questions  with  himself  con- 
cerning a  life  hereafter.  He  can  construct  no 
argument  for  the  immateriality  of  the  soul,  he 
can  build  up  no  plausible  hypothesis,  and  find 
no  legends  of  his  race  which  shall  stay  his 
trembling  heart  in  the  hour  of  his  dissolution. 
He  does  not  reason,  '  I  think  ;  therefore  I  am  ;' 
*  I  shall  continue  to  think  ;  therefore  I  shall 
continue  to  be.'  He  does  not  argue  with  him- 
self, The  soul  is  one  and  indivisible ;  therefore  it 
cannot  perish.  He  does  not  draw  his  hopes 
from  the  constitution  of  man,  from  his  memory, 
his  affections,  his  intellect,  his  sense  of  law  and 
duty.  Even  in  face  of  the  terrible  problems  of 
life,  and  in  sight  of  all  the  prosperous  wrong- 
doing, which  was  so  great  a  trial  to  his  constan- 
cy, he  does  not  escape  from  his  perplexity  by 
any  chain  of  reasoning,  by  any  analogies  that 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE  JEW.  87 

Nature  might  suggest  and  philosophy  confirm. 
He  does  not  infer,  that,  because  the  world  is  out 
of  joint,  God's  righteousness  must  have  a  larger 
sphere  of  action,  than  this  world  and  the  short 
years  of  man,  and  so  conclude  that  there  is  a 
life  to  come,  in  which  the  vindication  of  God's 
moral  government  shall  be  complete.     His  is  a 
grander  logic,  for  it  is  the  logic  of  the  heart. 
His  conclusions  are  reached,  not  in  the  schools, 
but  in  the  sanctuary  of  God.      There,  drawing 
near  to  God,  who  is  his  Life,  in  penitence,  iii 
humility,  in  adoration,  in  faith,  he  can  but  won- 
der that  he  should  have  so  "pierced  himself" 
with  the  goads  of  doubt,  that  he  should  have 
been  like  the  beasts  in  his  ignorance  and  folly.* 
There,    casting   himself    into    the    Everlasting 
arms,  he  knows  that  these  shall  be  beneath  him, 
though  heart  and  flesh  should  fail.     There,  hold- 
ing sweet  converse  with  his  Eternal  Friend,  he 
is  sure,  that  the  God  who  has  stooped  to  speak 
to  him,  as  a  friend,  will  not  suffer  him  to  drop 
into  the  abyss  of  annihilation.     His  life  is  no 
passing  phenomenon.     He  is  not  like  the  tree, 
or  the  flower,  or  the  bird,  or  the  beast,  creatures 
of  God's  hand  who  know  Him  not,  and  do  but 
yield  Him.  the  homage  of  a  reasonless  praise. 
He  knows  God,  he  has  spoken  to  God,  he  has 

^  Vs.  Ixxiii.  21,  22. 


88  IMMORTALITY. 

heard  the  voice  of  God  in  his  heart.  Tliis  is  no 
ilkision,  but  the  most  blessed,  as  it  is  the  most 
certain,  of  all  truths.  Faith  and  love  have  won 
their  everlasting  victory  in  those  words,  which 
will  for  all  time  remain  the  noblest  expression 
of  the  soul  pouring  itself  out  towards  God  : 

"  But  as  for  me — I  am  ahvays  by  Thee, 
Thou  hast  holden  me  by  my  right  hand. 
Thou  wilt  guide  me  in  Thy  counsel, 
And  afterwards  Thou  wilt  take  me  to  glory. 
Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  Thee  ? 
And  beside  Thee,  there  is  none  upon  earth  in  whom  I 

delight. 
My  flesh  and  my  heart  may  fail, 
But  God  is  the  rock  of  my  heart  and  my  portion  for 

ever."* 

This  great  truth,  then,  of  a  continuity  of  ex- 
istence is  felt  out,  rather  than  reasoned  out,  by 
the  Jew.  And  hence  we  so  often  find  that  the 
doctrine  of  Immortality  is  implied  rather  than 
expressed,  in  tha  Old  Testament.  We  infer  its 
presence,  where  the  language  does  not  directly 
convey  it.     When  a  Psalmist  writes, 

"  Surely  goodness  and  mercy  shall  follow  me  all  the  days 
of  my  life, 
And  I  will  dwell  in  the  house  of  Jehovah  for  ever  ;"f 

v/e  are  certainly  not  justified  (unless  it  be  for 

*  Ps.  Ixxiii.  23—26.         t  Ps.  xxiii.  6.     See  Calvin,  in  loc.      , 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE  JEW.  89 

our  own  private  edification)  in  interpreting  his 
words  to  mean,  tliat  lie  expected  to  dwell  for 
ever  in  God's  j^resence  in  heaven.  But  we  are 
justified  in  concluding  from  the  very  largeness 
of  the  expression,  that  he  is  uttering  a  ho|3e  and 
a  conviction,  that  the  God,  whose  loving-kind- 
ness he  has  tasted  all  his  life  long,  will  not  suffer- 
him  to  drop,  like  a  withered  leaf  from  the  tree, 
only  to  mingle  with  the  dust  beneath.  Or  again, 
who  that  reads  such  words  of  bounding  joy  in 
God,  such  intensity  and  greatness  of  affection, 
pouring  itself  out  upon  God,  as  we  find  in  the 
63rd  Psalm, 

'*  O  God,  Thou  art  my  God, 
My  soul  thirsteth  for  Thee,  my  flesh  pineth  for  Thee, 
For  Thy  loving-kindness  is  better  than  life  ;" 

— who  that  reads  words  such  as  these  can  per- 
suade himself,  that  the  affection  thus  centered 
upon  God  could  believe  itself  mocked,  could  for 
a  moment  conceive,  that  the  love  of  God,  which 
is  the  life  of  God,  v/ould  pass  away  like  water  or 
an  untimely  birth  ?  The  Love  of  God  is  Im- 
mortality. So  likewise,  what  is  the  meaning  of 
that  sublime  hymn,  which,  written  by  Moses  in 
the  desert,  is  now  emphatically  the  Christian's 
funeral  anthem  .-*  Is  it  only  a  wail  over  disap- 
pointed hopes  }     Is  it  nothing  but  an  exceeding 


90  niMORTALITY, 

bitter  cry  over  the  transitoriness  of  human  life  ? 
Does  it  sum  only  the  years  of  our  mortal  pilgrim- 
age, and  shut  out  all  beyond  ?  If  so,  then 
whence  the  instinct  of  the  Christian  Church, 
which  bids  us  use  it  as  Christians,  strong  in 
hope,  by  the  grave  of  those  we  love  ?  In  those 
words  we  discern  the  hope  which  rises  above 
this  world.     For  what  means  the  prayer, 

"So  teach  us  to  rxumber  our  days, 
That  we  may  gather  a  heart  of  wisdom,"* 

if  that  wisdom  come  to  an  end  with  the  seventy 
years  of  our  pilgrimage  ?  Or  why  speak  of  the 
eternal  Jehovah,  as  "  the  dwelling-place  "  of  man 
"  in  all  generations,"!  if  the  hearts  He  has  gath- 
ered into  that  home  drop  from  it  and  are  no 
more  remembered  ?  No,  whatever  doubt  and 
darkness  might  rest  upon  the  grave,  however  at 
times  the  Jewish  believer  might  shrink  in  vague 
terror  from  death  and  the  uncertainties  beyond 
death,  yet  he  who  could  say,  '  O  God,  thou  art 
my  God,'  had  the  witness  within  himself,  that 
his  life  could  never  perish,  that  neither  Death 
nor  Hell  could  pluck  him  out  of  the  hand  of 
God4 

It  may  possibly  have  appeared  to  some  minds, 

*   Ps.  XC.  12.  \    Ps.  XC.  I. 

X  In  the  very  able  Lectures  of  my  immediate  predecessor, 
Mr.  Pritchard,  substantially  the  same  view  is  taken  of  the  Jew- 
ish hope  of  immortality.     See  his  Htdscan  Lectures,  pp.  '^'^ — 35. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE  JEW.  9 1 

that  I  have  not  given  sufficient  weight  to  more 
direct  testimony,  expressive  of  the  future  hopes 
of  the  saints  of  old.  I  cannot  disguise  my  con- 
viction that  some  passages,  alleged  in  proof  of 
that  hope,  do  not  bear  the  full  stress  of  the  ar- 
gument based  upon  them.  In  particular  the 
doctrine  of  a  Resurrection,  which,  it  must  be  re- 
membered, is  quite  distinct  from  the  belief  in  a 
future  existence,  holds  by  no  means  a  promi- 
nent place  in  the  Old  Testament.  It  first  ap- 
pears distinctly  in  the  Prophet  Isaiah.*  Ezekiel's 
parable  of  a  national  resurrectionf  may  be  taken 
as  evidence  that  the  doctrine  was  not  unknown 
to  him.  Daniel  expresses  it  in  clear  and  unam- 
biguous terms. if-  But  these  are  all  the  certain 
witnesses,  whose  voice  makes  itself  heard  along 
all  the  centuries  of  Old  Testament  Revelation. 
The  celebrated  passage  in  the  Book  of  Job,  § 
when  once  fairly  rendered,  and  taken  in  connec- 
tion with  the  general  scope  of  the  book,  is  seen 
to  have  no  bearing  on  the  question.  Our 
English  Version  has  so  imprinted  this  sense 
upon  our  minds,  and  the  association  of  those 
grand  and  impressive  words  with  some  of  the 
most  solemn  scenes  of  our  earthly  existence  has 
so  consecrated  them  to  us,  as  the  utterance  of 


*  ch.  xxvi.  19.  t  ch.  xxxvii. 

X  ch.  xii.  2.  §  ch.  xix.  23 — 27. 


92  nniORTALITY. 

our  Christian  faith,  that  it  requires  some  courage 
to  Hsten  to  any  other  interpretation.  It  is  a 
shock  to  us  to  be  asked  to  give  up  the  familiar 
rendering.  We  shrink  from  tampering  with  it. 
Yet  that  rendering  is  certainly  false.  There  is 
no  allusion  I  believe  either  to  a  resurrection  or 
to  a  future  existence.  The  two  great  Continen- 
tal Scholars*  who  maintain  a  reference  here  to 
a  future  life,  do  so  only  by  substituting  the 
forced  and  unnatural  and  improbable  rendering, 
"  zvithout  my  flesh  I  shall  see  God,"  for  the  sim- 
ple and  straightforward  one,  ^^ from  my  flesh 
shall  I  see  God."  And  most  certainly  if  there 
be  any  expression  here  of  a  hope  reaching  be- 
yond this  world,  then  there  can  be  no  doubt,  I 
think,  that  Job  looks  for  a  resurrection,  not 
merely  for  a  future  life.  But  on  the  other  hand 
I  am  quite  unable  to  see  how,  even  supposing 
the  words  capable  of  such  an  interpretation,  it 
can  be  made  to  harmonize  with  the  context,  and 
especially  with  the  very  next  answer  of  Job  to 
his  friends,  where,  contrasting  the  lot  of  men  in 
this  Life, — one  man  "dying  in  full  strength,  be- 
ing wholly  at  ease  and  quiet,"  and  another  "  dy- 
ing in  the  bitterness  of  his  soul,  and  never 
eating  with  pleasure  " — he  sums  up  their  end 
alike, 

*  Evvald  and  Renan.     See  more  in  the  Appendix. 


THE  ROPE   OF  THE  JEVr.  93 

"■  They  shall  lie  down  alike  in  the  dust, 
And  the  worm  shall  cover  them  ;" 

never  hinting  at  anything  beyond.  The  close 
of  the  Book,  where  Job  is  recompensed  z/i  this 
life  for  all  his  losses  and  all  his  calamities,  com- 
ports best  with  the  obvious  meaning  of  his 
words  in  the  passage  under  consideration,  that 
he  hopes  in  this  life,  in  the  body,  in  his  flesh 
which  he  now  wears,  to  see  God  face  to  face,  as 
his  righteous  Avenger,  maintaining  his  cause, 
and  putting  his  adversaries  to  confusion.  It 
was  precisely  because  Job  had  no  clear  vision  of 
the  life  to  come,  that  he  was  so  oppressed  with 
the  problem  of  God's  moral  government  here. 
It  was  precisely  on  that  account,  that  it  weighed 
upon  his  heart,  "  heavy  as  lead  and  deep  almost 
as  life."  Had  the  sunrise  of  conviction  once 
flashed  upon  his  mind,  that  his  body  laid  in  the 
dust  should  be  raised  again  to  a  glorious  immor- 
tality, in  the  presence  of  God  his  Redeemer, 
could  he  have  fallen  back  again  immediately  into 
the  tone  of  distress  and  perplexity,  which  con- 
tinues to  pervade  his  language  t  Was  there  any 
need  for  God  to  appear  for  his  rebuke  }  Must 
not  the  drama  have  appropriately  closed,  with 
this  lofty  recognition  of  Eternal  Righteousness, 
misunderstood  here,  manifesting  itself  in  all  its 
integrity  hereafter } 

That  view  of  the  Old  Testament  revelation 


94  nUIORTALITV. 

respecting  a  future  state  which  I  have  endea- 
vored to  establish,  is  singularly  confirmed  by 
the  argument  of  our  Lord  as  recorded  by  three 
of  the  Evansrelists.  He  teaches  us  to  find  im- 
mortality  and  a  resurrection  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, but  He  teaches  us  to  find  it  in  the  spirit 
rather  than  in  the  letter.  He  teaches  us  to  look 
for  it,  not  as  a  dogma  but  as  a  life,  not  as  a  re- 
velation, but  as  implied  in  and.  underlying  all 
revelation.  He  refuted  Sadducean  scepticism 
by  an  appeal  to  the  writings  of  Moses,  by  an 
appeal  to  those  very  writings,  which  to  a  super- 
ficial observer  seem  to  make  almost  an  ostenta- 
tion of  reticence  on  the  subject.  And  it  is  im- 
portant to  observe  what  is  the  exact  nature  of 
His  appeal.  How  does  He  frame  His  argu- 
ment }  He  might  have  appealed  to  some  pas- 
sage, such  as  that  in  Isaiah,  "  Awake  and  sing, 
ye  that  dwell  in  dust,"  or  that  in  Daniel,  "  Many 
that  slee^D  in  the  dust  of  the  earth  shall  wake 
and  arise."  But  in  the  very  fact  that  He  omits 
all  reference  to  these  more  obvious  passages. 
He  seems  to  imply,  that  there  is  but  little  of  a 
direct  witness  to  this  truth  in  the  Old  Test^i- 
ment.  If  He  had  quoted  these,  the  Sadducee 
might  have  argued,  that  they  were  as  nothing,  a 
mere  speck,  in  the  whole  mass  of  Revelation,  or 
he  might  have  ventured  even  to  question  the 
authority  of  the  Book  of  Daniel.     But  our  Lord 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE  JEW.  95 

leaves  no  door  for  such  fencing  with  texts.  He 
does  not  attempt  to  hang  so  important  a  doc- 
trine on  one  or  two  passages,  which,  it  might  be 
alleged,  stood  alone  in  their  bearing.  His  di- 
vine philosophy  goes  far  deeper ;  it  lays  bare 
the  inmost  heart  and  spirit  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. He  shows  us  how  inevitably  a  Resurrec- 
tion follows,  from  the  very  recognition  of  that 
relation  between  God  and  man  of  which  Moses 
speaks.  If  the  Eternal  God  has  made  men  His 
friends,  if  He  has  takeji  them  into  covenant  with 
Himself,  and  declared  to  them  His  counsel,  if 
He  has  given  them  their  names,  singling  out 
His  friends  from  the  world,  and  vouchsafing  in 
infinite  grace  to  call  Himself  their  God,  then 
He  does  not  mock  them  with  fleeting  hopes  and 
transitory  promises".  He  does  not  bid  them  stay 
themselves  on  Him,  for  threescore  years  and 
ten,  and  then  cast  them  into  the  abvss  of  anni- 
hilation.  Even  a  human  father  would  not  let 
the  day  come,  if  he  could  help  it,  when  his  child 
should  cease  to  know  and  love  him  ;  even  a  hu- 
man friend  would  never  cast  from  him  the 
friend,  whose  heart  was  bound  up  in  his  own. 
Much  less  does  the  Eternal  Father  and  the 
Eternal  Friend, — much  less  does  He  whose 
name  is  Life  and  Love,  suffer  His  children  and 
His  friends  to  perish.  God  is  not  a  man  that 
He  should  lie  or  change.     His  is  an  Everlasting 


96  IMMORTALITV. 

Love.  And  because  He  calls  the  man  His 
friend,  because  He  calls  Himself  the  God  of  the 
individual,  singled  out  by  name,  therefore  the 
whole  man  must  survive  the  shock  of  death.  It 
is  not  the  spirit's  immortality  which  alone  is  se- 
cured. It  is  not  a  mere  prolongation  of  exis- 
tence, of  which  the  pledge  is  given.  The  body 
as  well  as  the  soul  is  God's.  In  the  body.  He 
calls  these  men  His  children  ;  on  the  body.  He 
sets  the  seal  of  His  covenant.  And  therefore, 
though  the  flesh  may  turn  to  corruption,  and 
the  worm  may  feed  upon  it,  yet  from  their  flesh 
shall  they  see  God,  see  Him  not  only  in  this 
world,  the  Avenger  of  their  cause,  but  see  Him 
in  the  world  to  come,  the  Judge  who  metes  out 
to  them  their  recomj^ense,  the  Rewarder  of  them 
who  diligently  seek  Him. 

Yes,  a  Resurrection  is  everywhere  in  the  Old 
Testament  to  him  who  can  look  beneath  the 
surface.  It  lurks  in  every  word  which  expresses 
a  sense  of  personal  relation  to  God.  It  breathes 
in  every  prayer  of  faith.  It  is  the  life  of  every 
hymn  in  vv^hich  the  soul  lifts  itself,  on  wings  of 
light  and  love,  to  the  Throne  of  the  Eternal. 
Before  you  can  expunge  that  doctrine  from  its 
pages,  you  must  expunge  the  name  of  every  one 
of  the  heroes  of  Faith,  you  must  blot  out  the 
burning  words  of  Psalmists  and  Prophets,  you 
must  deny  the  reality  of  every  aspiration  after 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE  JEy\\  97 

truth  and  holiness  and  purity,  you  must  assert 
that  God  is  the  God  of  the  dead  not  of  the  liv- 
ing ;  in  a  word,  you  must  assert  the  empire  of 
universal  death  ;  for  "  all  who  live,  live  unto 
Him." 

We  see  reason,  then,  to  correct  our  first  im- 
pression. Though  we  meet  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, for  many  centuries,  with  no  express  reve- 
lation of  a  Future  Life,  though  darkness  seems 
for  the  most  part  to  rest  upon  the  grave,  yet  the 
hope  of  the  faithful  Jew  is,  after  all,  brighter  and 
truer  than  that  of  the  wisest  of  the  heathen  ;  for 
though  not  kindled  by  direct  jDromise,  it  res'ted 
nevertheless  on  a  known  and  manifested  God. 
And  if  we  trace  the  history  of  Jewish  belief  be- 
yond the  Old  Testament  scriptures,  through  the 
four  hundred  years  which  intervened  between 
the  last  of  the  Prophets  and  the  Advent  of 
Christ,  we  shall  see  that  this  belief  gains  greatly 
in  distinctness  of  expression.  Thus  the  Author 
of  The  Wisdom  of  Solomon  has  portrayed,  in 
language  full  of  truth  and  beauty,  the  solemn 
retributions  of  eternity.  He  has  drawn  the 
picture  of  the  ungodly  leading  their  lives  of  sel- 
fish merriment,  saying,  "Come,  let  us  enjoy  the 
good  things  of  youth,  let  us  crown  ourselves 
with  rosebuds  ere  they  be  withered,  and  let  no 
flower  of  the  spring  pass  by  us  ;"  and  justifying 
their  conduct  by  the  plea  that  ''  in  the  death  of 


9  8  nniOE  tality. 

a  man  there  is  no  remedy,  neither  was  there  any 
man  known  to  have  returned  from  the  grave." 
And  he  rebukes  them  for  their  bhndness : 
"  Such  things  they  did  imagine  and  were  de- 
ceived, for  their  own  wickedness  hath  bhnded 
them.  As  for  the  mysteries  of  God,  they  knew 
them  not ;  neither  hoped  they  for  the  wages  of 
righteousness,  nor  discerned  a  reward  for  blame- 
less souls.  For  God  created  man  to  be  immoi^- 
tal,  and  made  hint  to  be  an  image  of  -His  ozvn 
eternity^*  Then  looking  on  the  end  of  the 
righteous  he  exclaims :  "  But  the  souls  of  the 
righteous  are  in  the  hand  of  God,  and  there 
shall  no  torment  touch  them.  In  the  sight  of 
the  unwise  they  seemed  to  die,  and  their  depar- 
ture is  taken  for  misery,  and  their  going  from 
us  to  be  utter  destruction  ;  but  they  are  in 
peace.  For  though  they  be  punished  in  the 
sight  of  men,  yet  is  their  hope  full  of  Imuoktkli- 
TY."f  And  again,  "  The  righteous  live  for  ever- 
more ;  their  reward  also  is  with  the  Lord,  and 
the  care  of  them  is  with  the  Most  High. 
Therefore  shall  they  receive  a  glorious  king- 
dom, and  a  beautiful  crown  from  the  Lord's 
hand."J 

It  is  in  the  sure  hope  that  they  shall  attain  to 
"a  better  resurrection,"  that    the    Martyr-bro- 

*  Chap.  ii.  21 — 23.    t  Chap.  iii.  1—4.   t  Chap.  v.  15 — 16. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE  JEW.  99 

thers  in  The  Maccabees  refuse  to  accept  the  ty- 
rant's mercy,  proffered  on  the  condition  that  they 
shall  deny  their  God.  Thus  with  his  last  breath 
does  one  of  them  declare  his  faith,  "  Thou  like 
a  fury  takest  us  out  of  this  present  life,  but  the 
King  of  the  world  shall  7'aise  tts  tip,  who  have 
died  for  His  laws,  unto  everlasting  life."'^  And 
the  heroic  mother  standing  by,  and  looking  with 
undaunted  spirit  on  the  agonies  of  her  sons, 
exhorts  them  to  a  like  courage  and  constancy, 
saying,  "Doubtless  the  Creator  of  the  world, 
who  formed  the  generation  of  man,  and  found 
out  the  beginning  of  all  things,  will  also  of  His 
own  mercy  give  you  breath  and  life  again,  as 
ye  now  regard  not  your  own  selves  for  His  laws' 

sake."t 

A  hope  thus  clear  and  thus  explicit  seems  al- 
most to  anticipate  on  this  point  the  Christian 
revelation.  There  is  no  longer  any  gloom,  any 
shrinking  from  death,  even  in  its  most  terrible 
forms.  The  future  recompense  and  the  resur- 
rection from  the  dead  are  unquestioned  articles 
of  the  popular  belief. 

We  have  traced  thus  far  the  growth  of  be- 
lief We  have  marked  its  several  stages. 
First,  there  is  the  belief  (at  least  implied)  in  a 
fnture  existence,  the  continuance  after  death  of 

*  2  Mace.  vii.  9.  t  lb.  vor.  23. 


lOO  nniORTALITY. 

the  personal  life,  though  evidently  this  was  held 
amidst  much  uncertainty  as  to  the  nature  of  that 
existence.  We  observe  next,  how  the  doctrine 
oi"^  future  retribution  gradually  took  shape  ;  and 
finally,  how  the  doctrine  of  a  Resurrectio^i  be- 
came at  last  an  admitted  article  of  the  popular 
Creed.  And  we  have  seen,  further,  that  the 
principal  factor  in  this  belief,  thus  gradually  for- 
cing itself  into  light,  was  not  a  distinct  revelation, 
but  the  living  consciousness  of  the  soul's  rela- 
tion to  God.  He  who  knew  and  loved  God  did 
so,  because  he  had  the  life  of  God,  and  therefore 
had  within  himself  the  witness  that  he  could  not 
perish.  Hope,  the  hope  of  the  future,  was  root- 
ed in  Faith  and  Love,  and  like  these  made  eter- 
nity its  own.  And  so  it  was,  as  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  teaches  us,  that  the  saints  of  old 
"  confessed  that  they  were  strangers  and  pil- 
grims "  here,  and  "  desired  a  heavenly  country, 
and  looked  for  a  city  which  hath  foundations 
whose  builder  and  Maker  is  God." 

We  might  conclude  here.  But  a  question 
arises  out  of  this  investigation  into  the  nature 
and  growth  of  the  Jewish  belief  which  cannot  be 
altogether  put  aside.  That  there  was  in  the  re- 
velation given  to  Moses  a  strange  reticence  on 
this  subject  cannot  be  denied.  Are  we  able  to 
account  for  it }  Why  was  there  this  silence } 
why  v/as  there  only  a  gradual  and  partial  disclo- 


THE  UOPE   OF  THE  JEW.  lOI 

sure,  for  many  ages  of  Jewish  life,  on  a  subject 
which  is  of  so  absorbing  importance,  which  Hes 
so  near  to  the  heart  of  man,  which  is  so  essen- 
tial a  part  of  all  religion,  and  which  did  in  fact 
form  a  leading  feature  of  every  heathen  system  ? 
One  thing  is  perfectly  clear,  that  Moses  could 
not  have  been  ignorant  of  the  truth.  For  Moses 
was  learned  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians, 
and  the  Egyptians,  as  we  have  seen,  went  be- 
yond all  other  nations  in  their  assertion  of  per- 
sonal immortality  and  a  judgement  after  death. 
His  silence  is  not  the  silence  of  ignorance.  Is 
it  the  silence  of  a  deliberate  reserve,  or  how 
shall  we  account  for  it  ?  The  phenomenon  is  so 
remarkable,  that  it  has  engaged  the  attention  of 
great  thinkers  in  all  ages  of  the  Church.  Au- 
gustine and  Chrysostom,  Aquinas  and  Leibnitz, 
Bossuet  and  Warburton  have  each  attempted  to 
solve  this  problem,  but  they  scarcely  win  from 
us  a  partial  assent.  The  very  elaborate  attempt 
of  a  recent  writer*  to  deal  with  the  same  diffi- 
culty is  anything  but  convincing.  It  is  scarcely 
possible  to  read  it,  without  feeling  with  how 
much  satisfaction  the  contrary  thesis  would  have 
been  maintained,  had  the  language  of  Scripture 
happened  to  be  the  other  way.     With  what  a 


*  Th.  H.  INIartin,  L<^  Vic  Future,  suivant  hi  Raisoii  ct  S7ii-ja7ii 
la  Foi. 


102  nnwETALiTr. 

tone  of  triumph  would  the  Christian  Apologist 
have  then  appealed  to  such  a  revelation,  as  the 
most  convincing  proof  of  the  moral  superiority 
of  the  Jewish  faith  to  that  of  the  Gentile.  But 
though  we  may  not  be  able  wholly  to  explain  the 
phenomenon,  some  light  falls  upon  it  from  two 
considerations. 

I.  First  let  us  rem.ember  that  God  does  not 
always  teach  us  as  men  would  have  Him  teach. 
There  is  no  haste,  no  impatience,  no  crowding 
of  truth  upon  truth  in  His  teaching.*  His  les- 
sons are  deliberate  and  orderly,  and  to  us  who 
are  always  in  a  hurry  may  seem  but  slowly  im- 
parted. But  He  who  works  in  Eternity  and  is 
not  cramped  by  time  makes  no  haste  in  what  He 
does.  One  principle  runs  through  all  the  Di- 
vine Education.  He  speaks  to  us  as  we  are  able 
to  bear  it,  here  a  little,  and  there  a  little.  Thus 
He  imprints  His  lessons  upon  our  minds. 
Thus  He  helps  us  to  educate  ourselves.  Things 
ra^Didly  learnt  are  easily  forgotten  ;  truths  which 
we  attain  to  through  discipline  and  struggle  and 
failure  and  disappointment,  through  much  self- 
questioning,  and  much  self-denial,  and  much 
earnest  striving,  are  those  which  lay  hold  of  us, 
enter  into  us,  form  as  it  were  the  staple  of  our 


*  On  this  slowness  in  the  Divine  teaching,  see  Mr.  Pritchard's 
Hithcan  Lectures.     Lect.  III. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE  JEW.  1 03 

character.  They  are  those  to  which  we  cHng 
most  steadfastly,  and  which  are  most  serviceable 
to  us  in  the  long  run.  So  it  was  with  the  truth 
of  the  soul's  immortality  :  the  very  struggles 
through  which  God's  saints  had  to  pass  to  as- 
sure themselves  of  the  truth,  may  have  been  the 
very  reason,  why  the  truth  at  last  appeared  to 
the  Jew,  with  a  brightness,  a  distinctness,  a  pu- 
rity, which  it  never  possessed  for  the  Gentile. 

2.  But  we  may,  I  think,  see  a  Divine  purpose 
in  this  reticence.*  God  was  teaching  the 
fathers  of  the  Jewish  Church  the  primary  truth 
on  which  all  other  truth  was  to  rest,  that  He- 
and  nothing  else  was  their  sufficient  portion. 
"  I  am  thy  shield  and  thy  exceeding  great  re- 
ward," this  was  His  great  word  to  Abraham.  It 
was  by  this  that  Abraham  lived.  The  whole 
discipline  of  his  life  had  this  purpose  in  it,  to 
lead  him  to  find  the  everlasting  God,  his 
strength,  his  portion,  his  all.  He  was  called 
"  the  friend  of  God,"  and  he  who  had  God  for 
his  friend  could  need,  could  have,  nothing  more. 
On  this  fact  Abraham's  life  was  built,  on  this, 
the  lives  of  all  his  .  true  children.  The  Jews 
were  not  merely  designed  to  be  witnesses  to  the 
world  of  the  Unity  of  God.  They  were  this  no 
doubt,  but  they  were  far  more.     They  were  wit- 

*  See  my  Comvieiitary  on  the  Psalms,  Vol.  i.  pp.  Ixxvi,  Ixxvii. 


104  n£3I0RTALITY. 

nesses  to  a  better  truth,  that  the  Eternal  God 
loves  men,  and  calls  them  His  children  and  His 
friends,  and  that  men  can  be,  and  can  know 
themselves  to  be.  His  friends  and  His  children. 
It  is  of  this  truth  that  Psalmists  and  Prophets 
are  full.  The  poetry  of  the  Hebrews,  it  has 
been  well  said,  is  "5  poetry  of  friendship  be- 
tween God  and  man."*  And  it  seems  to  have 
been  designed,  that  the  truth  of  this  Divine 
communion  should  occupy  so  commanding  a 
position,  that  no  other  truth  should  be  suffered, 
as  it  were,  to  come  into  competition  with  it. 
This  was  to  stand  alone  in  its  grandeur,  because 
upon  it  man's  life  was  to  be  built.  We  must 
rest  upon  the  broad  foundation  of  faith,  before 
we  can  have  the  hope  that  maketh-not  ashamed  ; 
and  never  can  there  be  a  sublimer  heroism  of 
Faith  than  that,  which,  claiming  no  promise  of 
future  recompense,  goes  down  into  the  mystery 
of  Darkness,  leaning  only  upon  God. 

*  Herder. 


LECTURE  IV.      ' 

THE  HOPE   OF   THE  CHRISTIAN. 
John  XL  25,  26  and  XIV.  19. 

. . .  /  am  the  Resiin-ection  and  the  Life  :  Jie  that  believeth 
in  Me,  though  he  tvej-e  dead,  yet  shall  he  live  :  and 
whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  in  Me  shall  fiever  die. 

. . .  Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also. 

We  have  watched  hitherto  the  instinct  of  the 
human  heart,  struggHng  to  assert,  in  the  face  of 
death  and  corruption,  its  hope  of  immortality. 
We  have  seen  how  deep-rooted  the  conviction 
of  another  hfe  is,  and  at  the  same  time,  how  un- 
able Reason  is  to  attain  to  certainty  respecting 
it.  On  the  one  hand,  man  craves  and  yearns 
for  immortality :  on  the  other  hand,  a  future  life 
seems  to  sliiD  away  from  him  in  proportion  as  he 
strives  to  satisfy  himself  of  its  reality.  Reason 
and  Conscience  are  alike  witnesses  to  the  truth, 
but  they  can  neither  create  the  truth,  nor  dis- 
cover the  truth,  nor  prove  the  truth.  Only 
v/hen  the  truth  comes,  can  they  recognize  it  and 
embrace  it  as  the  truth. 


I O  6  niMOR  TALITT. 

Now  the  Revelation  of  God  addresses  itself  to 
us,  as  having  needs  and  instincts  of  the  heart 
and  conscience,  and  it  satisfies  those  needs  and 
confirms  those  instincts.  Strictly  speaking,  it 
does  not  bring  before  us  something  strange, 
novel,  unheard  of,  something  far  removed  from 
our  nature  and  our  modes  of  thought,  and  bid 
us  accept  it  with  a  wondering  faith,  because  it 
comes  from  above.  No, — beyond  all  things  else, 
God's  revelation  of  Himself  to  us,  is  also  a  reve- 
lation to  us  of  ourselves.  It  is  a  discerner  of  the 
thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart,  not  only  be- 
cause it  lays  all  "  naked  and  opened "  before 
God,  but  because  it  discovers  to  ourselves  the 
depth  and  the  meaning  of  our  own  hearts,  their 
motives,  their  impulses,  their  yearnings,  their 
inmost  being.  Man  cannot  understand  himself; 
he  cannot  express  rightly  his  own  thoughts  ; 
when  he  essays  to  do  so,  he  speaks  with  lisping 
tongue,  like  an  infant ;  and,  like  an  infant,  he 
struggles  for  the  word  which  shall  express  his 
meaning,  which  shall  utter  and  convey  his 
thoughts.  And  Christ,  the  Eternal  Word,  gives 
him  the  word  he  needs,  interprets  his  heart,  and 
helps  him  to  interpret  it  to  himself.  No  revela- 
tion can  be  a  true  revelation,  which  does  not 
thus  explain  to  us  our  inmost  selves,  which  does 
not  break  the  fetters  that  limit  and  circumscribe 
our  thought  and  knowledge,  which  does  not  set 


THE  HOPE    OF  THE   CHRISTIAN.  107 

free  our  stammering  tongues,  teaching  us  to 
speak  plainly.  That  which  gives  it  its  right  and 
its  power  over  us  is,  that  coming  from  without, 
it  seems  to  be  the  voice  of  all  that  is  purest 
within  ;  that  the  truth  which  it  declares  is  in 
fact  our  own  truth,  the  truth  v/hich  we  are  long- 
ing to  find  and  to  utter,  the  truth  which  we 
need.  It  was  this  '  divine  word '  for  which  a 
Socrates  was  seeking,  that  upon  it,  as  '  a  securer 
vessel,'  he  might  make  his  journey  without  peril, 
and  for  lack  of  which,  he  was  obliged  to  content 
himself  with  '  the  best  of  human  words,'  trusting 
to  it,  as  to  a  raft,  for  the  voyage  of  life.  It  was 
this  ^divine  word '  which  a  Paul  had  found,  when 
he  wrote,  "  for  we  knozu  that  if  the  earthly  house 
of  our  tabernacle  were  dissolved,  we  have  a 
building  of  God,  a  house  not  made  with  hands, 
eternal  in  the  heavens."*  We  listen  to  Socrates, 
in  his  prison  at  Athens,  ere  yet  the  hour  is  come 
when  he  must  drink  the  hemlock,  discoursing 
with  calm  dignity  of  death  and  immortality,  but 
confessing  his  uncertainty  as  to  what  shall  be 
hereafter,  and  solacing  himself  with  the  thought, 
that  at  the  worst  death  is  but  a  dreamless  sleep. 
We  turn  to  the  letter  which  Paul  wrote,  from 
his  prison  at  Rome,  to  his  Philippian  friends, 
and  there  is  no  shadow  of  doubt  or  uncertainty 

^  2  Cor.  V.  1. 


I08  UDIORTALITY. 

here  :  every  word  is  lit  up  with  the  radiance  of 
joy  and  hope,  as  he  contemplates  the  approach 
of  death — "  I  have  a  desire  to  depart  and  to  be 
with  Christ,  which  is  far  better ;"  ''  to  me  to  live 
is  Christ,  and  to  die  is  gain." 

It  is  impossible  to  read  such  words,  without 
feeling,  that,  to  the  Apostle  Paul,  Christ  Jesus 
was  no  phantom  of  the  imagination,  but  a  true 
and  living  person.  It  is  plain,  moreover,  that  it 
was  in  consequence  of  his  own  conscious  rela- 
tion to  Christ,  that  he  had  so  calm  and  so  sure  a 
hope  for  the  future.  That  hope  rested,  he  as- 
serts again  and  again,  upon  the  Resurrection  of 
Christ,  as  an  historical  fact  to  which  he  could 
appeal,  and  upon  the  risen  life  of  Christ,  as  an 
experienced  fact,  of  which  he  had  the  witness  in 
himself  St.  Paul  must  have  had  his  doubts  and 
his  perplexities  like  other  men  ;  one  whose  heart 
was  capable  of  such  deep  tenderness  and  such 
deep  sadness  as  his,  could  never  have  escaped 
from  them  altogether.  Yet  it  is  not  by  any  ar- 
guments, except  such  as  were  based  on  the  Re- 
surrection of  Christ,  that  he  seeks  to  remove 
doubts,  and  to  plant  in  other  hearts  the  hope 
which  had  given  courage  to  his  ov/n.  St.  Paul, 
trained  in  the  school  of  the  Pharisees,  had  been 
taught  from  his  earliest  years  to  accept  the  re- 
surrection, as  an  article  of  religious  belief;  yet 
he   never   falls  back  on  that   teaching   as    the 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE    CHIUSTIAX.  1 09 

ground  of  his  hope.  In  Christ  alone  did  he 
find  "  the  rock  of  his  heart,  and  his  portion  for 
ever."  It  was  because  Christ  Hved,  that  he  lived. 
Christ  was  his  life  here ;  Christ  was  in  him,  the 
hope  of  glory  hereafter.  It  was  this  certain  as- 
surance of  a  risen  Christ,  this  conscious  relation 
to  a  risen  Lord,  which  filled  him  with  such  con- 
fidence and  exultation  in  the  prospect  of  death, 
which  made  him  even  "  desire  to  depart,"  that  ];c 
might  "  for  ever  be  with  the  Lord."  And  here, 
too,  has  been  the  secret  and  the  strength  of  all 
Christian  hope,  from  the  Apostle's  days  to  our 
own.  It  rests  upon  this  double  fact,  the  exter- 
nal fact  of  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus,  and  the 
internal  fact  of  a  present  participation  in  that 
risen  life.  Hence  it  is  that  Christian  hope  de- 
rives the  confident  certainty,  by  which  it  is  dis- 
tinguished from  all  other  hope  whatsoever. 

Now  this  is  the  point  upon  which  I  am 
anxious  to  insist. :  I  am  anxious  to  put  before 
you — or  rather,  let  me  say,  to  indicate,  to  sug- 
gest, briefly  and  imperfectly  though  it  must  be, 
the  outlines  of  a  philosophy  of  Christian  hope. 
Man  and  the  world  are  alike,  in  their  very  con- 
stitution, prophets  of  immortality.  Man  puts 
away  from  his  lips  with  loathing  the  cup  of  anni- 
hilation which  you  offer  him,  as  the  anodyne  of 
his  misery.  But  where  shall  he  find  the  ambro- 
sia of  immortality  "i     How  shall  he  be  quite  sure 


no  niMORTALITT. 

of — not  desire  merely,  nor  tremblingly  expect, 
nor  doubtfully  anticipate  or  dread,  a  life  beyond 
this  life — how  shall  he  be  sin^e,  that  Death  has 
no  power  to  destroy  him  ;  but  that  he,  the  same 
person,  the  same  in  his  memory,  in  his  thoughts, 
in  his  affections,  in  his  will,  shall  continue, 
knowing  himself  to  be  himself,  and  perpetuating 
his  own  individual  existence  beyond  the  grave  ? 
Christianity  answers  by  two  facts  : 

I.  First  by  the  Resurrection  of  Christ. 

II.  And  next  by  the  Life  of  Christ  communi- 
cated to  us. 

I.  First,  by  the  Resurrection  of  Christ. 
Christian  hope  differs  emphatically  from  all 
other  hope  in  this,  that  it  rests,  neither  upon  any 
instinct  of  the  human  heart,  nor  upon  any  infe- 
rence from  human  reasoning,  nor  even  upon  a 
promise  sent  from  heaven  to  earth, — and  capa- 
ble, as  all  words  are,  of  a  variety  of  interpreta- 
tion— but  upon  a  fact,  upon  a  Person.  One  is 
set  before  us,  who  born  into  this  world,  as  we 
ourselves  are,  and  living  here  a  chequered  human 
life,  in  no  way  removed  from  our  common  lot, 
bearing  upon  it  the  unmistakable  impress  of  hu- 
man thoughts  and  feelings,  has  in  that  human 
form  achieved  the  victory  over  death.  It  is  a 
human  history  we  are  reading,  when  we  read  the 
history  of  Christ.  We  can  follow  it  step  by 
step,  a  series  of  facts,  apart   from  any  theory 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE   CHRISTIAX.  Ill 

we  may  form  of  it,  or  from  any  coloring  with 
which  imagination  may  invest  it.  If  a  future  Hfe 
had  merely  been  announced,  we  might  have  built 
upon  the  announcement  what  hopes  and  what 
hypotheses  we  pleased.  But  here  we  see  One 
made  like  unto  us,  in  all  points  tempted  like  as 
we  are,  united  to  us  in  the  fellowship  of  our  trial 
and  suffering  and  death,  rising  again  from  the 
dead  and  taking  with  Him  the  nature  which  He 
wears,  into  the  very  presence  of  the  Majesty  on 
high.  Hence  we  have  the  visible  pledge  and  the 
type  of  our  own  resurrection. 

It  is  indeed  quite  conceivable,  that  such  a 
spectacle  might  not  be  sufficient  of  itself  to  as- 
sure us  of  our  own  resurrection  to  life.  We 
might  argue,  and  on  reasonable  grounds,  that 
such  a  resurrection,  after  all,  was  not  a  type  and 
a  prophecy,  but  an  exception  to  a  universal  law. 
The  very  perfection  of  our  Lord's  human  cha- 
racter might  seem  to  merit  some  exclusive  dis- 
tinction. The  cases,  it  might  be  said,  are  not 
really  parallel.  That  life  of  spotless  beauty 
stands  alone  in  the  world's  history.  It  may  well 
be  crowned  with  glory.  But  why  should  the 
crown  wherewith  God  has  crowned  that  perfect 
life,  be  placed  on  the  head  of  those  who,  if  they 
strive  at  all  to  lift  themselves  towards  heaven, 
strive  with  poor,  feeble,  broken  efforts,  which 
seem   to    end  in  nothing  but  disappointment  ? 


1 1  3  nniOE  TA  LITT. 

How  shall  we,  born  in  sin  and  all  our  life  tainted 
with  corruption,  gather  from  Christ's  resurrec- 
tion any  hope,  since  assuredly  we  have  no  claim 
to  His  reward  ?  Most  certainly,  if  Jesus  Christ 
were  only  man,  this  argument  would  remain  in  all 
its  force.  The  resurrection  of  one  perfect  man 
could  be  no  valid  ground  for  expecting  the  re- 
surrection of  millions  of  beings  imperfect  as 
ourselves.  But  the  Incarnation  of  Jesus  gives 
its  true  and  proper  significance  to  His  Resurrec- 
tion. It  is  no  longer  a  unit  of  the  human  race, 
v^ho  has  been  singled  out  for  special  favor.  It 
is  no  longer  a  solitary  individual,  having  no 
other  relation  to  the  race  than  this,  that  like 
them  he  has  flesh  and  blood.  It  is  One  who,  as 
equal  with  the  Eternal  Father,  has  the  power,  as 
He  has  the  right,  to  take  up  the  manhood  into 
God.  The  Divine  Word  did  not  unite  Himself 
to  a  man.  He  was  "  made  flesh."  He  became 
man.  He  took  our  na.ture,  and  therefore  in  all 
that  He  does  and  is,  our  nature  has  a  share. 
He  took  it  in  its  weakness,  that  He  might  re- 
deem, purify,  exalt  it.  He  took  it  in  its  liability 
to  death,  that  in  it  He  might  vanquish  death, 
and  set  free  those,  "  who  through  the  fear  of 
death,  were  all  their  life-time  subject  to  bond- 
age." By  this  His  union  of  the  human  nature 
with  the  Divine,  He  became  the  Second  Head 
of  our  race,  and  therefore  in  the  truest  and  deep- 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE   CHEISTTAX.  1 13 

est  sense  its  Redeemer.  For  he  did  not  stand 
aloof  from  us  to  save  us  ;  He  did  not  stretch  out 
His  hand  from  heaven  to  pluck  us  from  the  jaws 
of  hell ;  He  did  not  come  as  a  conqueror  to 
break  our  chains  ;  but  as  a  friend  He  placed 
Himself  in  our  prison  house,  and  refused  not  to 
share  our  bondage.  All  that  the  First  Adam 
had  brought  upon  us  of  ignominy,  degradation, 
and  death,  the  Second  Adam  took  upon  Him- 
self, and  by  taking  it,  He  put  it  for  ever  awa}^ 
Sin  had  made  human  nature  corrupt  and  foul, 
and  the  Sinless  Man  cleansed  it  from  the  awful 
taint.  Death  had  made  man  his  prey  and  set 
up,  as  it  seemed,  a  Universal  Empire,  and  the 
human  Lord  of  Life  broke  in  jDieces  that  dread 
dominion.  He  did  not  merely  reverse  the  sen- 
tence of  death,  by  an  arbitrary  annulling  of  it, 
but  He  did  so  by  the  actual  victory  of  Life  over 
Death,  in  the  same  nature  v/hich  had  become 
subject  to  Death.  The  Life  of  God  in  man  van- 
quished Death  :  it  was  impossible  that  that  life 
could  be  holden  of  Death.  The  First  Adam  was 
made  "  a  living  soul,"  and  therefore  could  only 
transmit  to  his  posterity  the  natural  life,  tainted 
with  sin  and  containing  in  it  the  seed  of  death. 
The  Second  Adam  was  "  a  quickening  spirit," 
having  life  in  Himself,  and  of  power  to  impart 
that  life  to  others  :  because  the  First  Adam  was 


1 1 4  niMOR  TA  LITY. 

"of  the  earth  *  earthy  ;"  the  Second  Adam  was 
"  the  Lord  from  heaven." 

The  Resurrection,  then,  of  Christ  Jesus,  both 
God  and  Man,  is  to  us  the  pattern  and  the  sure 
pledge  of  our  own  resurrection,  because  He  is 
inseparably  united  to  us  as  the  Second  Head  of 
our  race. 

n.  But  again,  Christianity  establishes  our 
hopes,  not  only  by  pointing  to  an  outward  fact, 
but  by  the  experience  of  an  inward  fact,  the 
communication  of  the  life  of  Christ  to  all  who 
believe  in  Him.  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Resurrec- 
tion because  He  is  the  Life,  and  He  imparts  that 
life  to  us,  "  Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also." 
There  is  a  sense  in  which  it  may  almost  be  said, 
that  the  resurrection  is  begun  here,  because  the 
germ  of  it  is  to  be  found  in  every  renewed  and 
sanctified  nature.  A  power  has  been  put  forth 
upon  the  man,  which  must  issue  in  his  final  and 
complete  glorification.  A  life  has  been  begun, 
which  in  its  very  nature  can  never  end,  because 
it  is  the  life  of  God  Himself.  The  resurrection 
to  life,  though  it  is  sometimes  described  as  a 
gift,  is  also  to  be  regarded  as  the  natural  and 
necessary  development  of  the  work  of  grace. 
Both  truths  are  stated  by  our  Lord  in  His  dis- 
course with  the  Jews,  recorded  in  the  5th  chap- 
ter of  St.  John's  gospel :  "  Verily,  verily  I  say 
unto  you.  He  that  heareth  my  word  and  be- 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE   CIIRISTIAX.  I T  5 

lieveth  on  Him  that  sent  me.  hath  cverlastins^ 
life,  and  shall  not  come  into  condemnation,  but 
is  passed  from  death  iinto  life.  Verily,  verily  I 
say  unto  you.  The  hour  is  coming  and  now  is, 
when  the  dead  shall  hear  the  voiee  of  the  Son  of 
God ;  and  they  that  hear  shall  live.  For  as  the 
Father  hath  life  in  Himself,  so  hath  He  given  to 
the  Son  to  have  life  in  Himself,  and  hath  given 
Him  authority  to  execute  judgment  also,  because 
He  is  the  Son  of  Man."  Here,  as  in  so  many  other 
places  of  the  New  Testament,  we  are  taught  that 
eternal  life  is  not  merely  to  be  looked  for  beyond 
the  grave,  but  is  a  present  reality.  There  is  a 
quickening  of  the  spirit  to  newness  of  life  here, 
as  well  as  a  quickening  of  the  body  hereafter. 
Of  this  twofold  life,  Christ  is  the  saurce 
Christ  gives  eternal  life  to  all  who  believe  in 
Him  ;  Christ  raises  the  dead  :  and  He  does  both 
the  one  and  the  other,  by  virtue  of  that  Divine 
life  which  He  receives  from  the  Father  and  yet 
has  in  Himself,*  of  which  He  is  at  once  the  Au- 
thor and  the  Giver.  It  was  to  give  this  life  that 
He  came  into  the  world  :  "  I  am  come  that  they 
might  have  life,  and  that  they  might  have  it 
more  abundantly."!  It  is  from  Him  that  this 
life   is  derived  ;  it  is  only  by  communion  with 


*  John  V.  26  ;  comp.  vi.  57.  t  John  x.  17. 


lib  nnionTALiTr. 

Him  that  this  life  can  be  sustained.  So  he  de- 
clares :  "  I  am  the  living  bread  which  came  down 
from  heaven  :  if  any  man  eat  of  this  bread,  he 
shall  live  for  ever."*  And  again  :  "  Except  ye 
eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man  and  drink  His 
blood,  ^e  have  no  life  in  yoiL.  Whoso  eateth  my 
flesh  and  drinketh  my  blood  Jiath  eternal  life ; 
and  /  will  7'aise  him  np  at  the  last  dayT^  .  Here 
likewise  there  is  a  reiteration  of  the  same  truths  ; 
here  there  is  the  same  intimate  connection  be- 
tween the  present  gift  of  eternal  life,  the  present 
partaking  of  Christ,  and  the  future  resurrection 
to  glory.  You  cannot  separate  these  things. 
That  which  is  spiritual  is  in  its  very  nature  eter- 
nal. Death  is  but  as  the  episode  of  a  sleep  ;  it 
has  no  power  to  touch  the  heart  of  that  life 
which  is  "hid  with  Christ  in  God."  That  life 
given  here  in  the  body  imparts  to  the  body  a 
share  in  its  triumph  over  death,  is  the  seal  and 
the  pledge,  that  even  though  the  body  fall  into 
dust,  it  shall  be  raised  again  from  the  dust,  in- 
corruptible. So  essential,  indeed,  is  this  connec- 
tion between  the  life  eternal  and  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  body,  that  it  is  almost  the  only  view 
(Of  the  resurrection  which  is  presented  to  us  in 
Scripture.  There  are,  I  believe,  but  two  pas- 
sages in  the  New  Testament,  in  which  the  re- 

"  J^J'-^  vi.  51.  t  John  vi.  53,  54. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE    CHRIST! AX.  .   llj 

surrection  of  the  wicked  is  so  much  as  men- 
tioned ;  once  by  our  Lord,  when  he  speaks  of  a 
resurrection  of  damnation,  to  which  they  that 
have  done  evil  shall  come  forth  from  their 
graves  f  and  once  by  St.  Paul,  when  he  ac- 
knowledges, as  a  truth  common  to  himself  with 
his  Jewish  opponents,  a  resurrection  both  of  the 
just  and  the  unjust.f  But  with  these  excep- 
tions, the  other  view  of  the  Resurrection  is  ex- 
clusively presented  ;  it  is  invariably  spoken  of  as 
the  fruit  and  result  of  a  spiritual  life,  of  which 
Christ  is  the  fountain  and  source.  The  one,  as 
it  were,  by  a  moral  and  spiritual  necessity,  im- 
plies the  other.  "  Even  the  universal  resurrec- 
tion," it  has  been  truly  said,  "  shall  be  but  the 
natural  development  of  that  which  now  works  in 
the  children  of  God."  J 

Sometimes  the  same  lofty  and  mysterious 
truth  is  presented  to  us  under  another  aspect  ; 
and  the  Resurrection  is  associated  with  the  in- 
dwelling in  our  hearts  of  a  Divine  Person. 
Thus,  for  instance,  St.  Pa.ul  speaks  of  Christ  as 
"our  Life,"  as  "living  in  us,"  as  "in  us  the  hope 
of  glory."  And  again,  he  says,  "  If  the  Spirit  of 
Him  that  raised  up  Jesus  from  the  dead  dwell  in 
you,  He  that  raised  up  Christ  from  the  dead 
shall  quicken  your  mortal  bodies  also  on  account 

*  John  V.  29.  t  Acts  xxiv.  15. 

t  Archer  Butler. 


1 1 8  nnioji tality. 

of  His  Spirit  that  dwelleth  in  you."  *  The  Re- 
surrection follows  from  such  inhabitation  :  those 
bodies,  in  which  He  has  vouchsafed  to  make  His 
tabernacle,  are  not  destined  merely  to  be  the 
prey  of  the  worm  and  to  be  left  in  corruption.  I 
know  it  may  be  said,  that  to  speak  of  such  a  Di- 
vine life  and  such  a  Divine  indwelling  is  mysti- 
cism. It  may  be  set  down  as  a  pious  sentiment, 
or  the  dream  of  a  disordered  imagination.  Yet 
a  heathen  f  will  rebuke  the  hasty  speech  and  the 
shallow  thought,  which  deny-  that  man's  heart 
can  be  the  chosen  abode  of  a  heavenly  visitant, 
and  will  tell  us,  that  "  there  dwells  in  us  a  Holy 
Spirit,  who  keeps  watch  over  our  thoughts  and 
actions."  And  surely  unless  we  are  prepared  to 
deny  the  possibility  of  so  high  and  blessed  a  gift 
of  grace,  unless  we  are  prepared  to  maintain 
that  the  noblest  and  purest  of  our  race,  the  men 
of  the  loftiest  aims  and  holiest  lives,  have  been 
the  victims  of  a  mere  delusion,  we  must  admit 
the  reasonableness  of  the  scheme,  which  con- 
nects the  life  here  with  the  life  hereafter  ;  we 
must  admit  the  force  of  the  conclusion,  that  the 
body,  which  God  has  deigned  to  sanctify,  shall  be 
raised  again  to  a  glorious  immortality.  If  it  be 
true,  that  Jesus  Christ,  the  Eternal  Word  of  the 
Father,  has  as  the  fruit  of  His  own  Death  and 

*  Ro:n.  viii.  1 1.  t  Seneca. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE   CHFIST/AX.  II9 

Resurrection  sent  the  Holy  Ghost,  to  dwell  in 
our  hearts  and  to  make  our  bodies  His  temple, 
then  that  Divine  visitant  sheds  His  sanctifying 
influences  upon  the  whole  man.  Every  member 
of  the  body  is  consecrated  to  the  service  of  the 
most  High  God.  The  eye,  the  ear,  the  hands, 
the  feet,  all  have  been  baptized  with  the  Divine 
baptism.  "  Holiness  to  the  Lord  "  is  written 
even  on  the  outermost  edge  of  the  garment  of 
the  flesh.  Not  only  is  the  heart  filled  with  joy 
and  peace,  with  meekness  and  gentleness,  with 
faith  and  hope  and  love,  but  the  body  in  all  its 
appetites  and  desires  is  governed  and  sanctified 
by  the  same  holy  Presence.  Those  imperious 
lusts,  those  ungovernable  passions,  which  na- 
turally hold  the  dominion  of  the  body,  till  the 
flesh  imposes  its  thraldom  upon  the  spirit,  and 
the  soul  itself,  made  the  slave  of  lust,  becomes 
transubstantiated  into  flesh,*  are  not  crushed  and 
extirpated  by  the  crushing  and  extirpating  of  the 
body,  but  are  brought  into  obedience  to  the  law 
of  the  Spirit  of  Life.  The  body  as  well  as  the 
spirit  is  holy.  One  part  of  our  nature  is  not  left 
to  curse  and  barrenness  whilst  the  dew  of  hea- 
ven falls  richly  upon  the  other.  When  St.  Paul 
exhorts  the  Colossians,  as  partakers  of  a  spiri- 
tual resurrection  together  with  Christ,  to  "  mind 

*  Anima  victa  libidine  fit  caro. — Au£Tustinc. 


I  2  O  IJLUOE  TA  LITY. 

the  things  above,"  connecting  the  exhortation 
with  the  thought  of  Christ's  appearing,  and  the 
future  glory  of  the  Christian,  he  immediately 
adds  :  "  Deaden  therefore  your  members  which 
are  upon  the  earth  ;"  *  and  he  proceeds  to  enu- 
merate sins  of  the  flesh,  sins  for  which  the  body 
in  its  members  and  organs  furnishes  the  instru- 
.ments.  And  when  writing  to  the  Romans,  in 
the  passage  already  quoted,  he  speaks  of  the  re- 
surrection, as  effected  on  account  of  the  indwell- 
ing of  the  Spirit,  he  subjoins  the  exhortation  : 
"  Therefore,  brethren,  we  are  debtors  not  to  the 
flesh  to  live  after  the  flesh.  For  if  ye  live  after 
the  flesh,  ye  shall  die  :  but  if  ye  through  the 
Spirit  do  deaden  the  deeds  of  the  body  ye  shall 
live."  t  The  body  is  to  be  reverenced  and  sanc- 
tified, because  the  Spirit  of  God  dwells  in  it,  and 
because  by  His  mighty  power  working  in  it,  it 
shall  be  raised  from  death.  Thus,  then,  accord- 
ing to  the  Christian  scheme,  our  hope  is  doubly 
assured.  It  is  assured  not  only  by  the  Resur- 
rection of  Christ  as  an  outward  fact :  it  is  as- 
sured by  the  gift  of  eternal  life,  by  the  indwelling 
of  Christ  and  of  His  Spirit  in  our  hearts,  there 
reigning  and  ruling,  sanctifying  the  whole  man  ; 
not  purifying  the  spirit  only,  but  shedding  a  di- 
vine unction  upon  the  body,  and  so  giving  the 

*  Coloss.  iii.  I — 10.  t  Rom.  viii.  12,  n.. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE    CHRISTIAX.  121 

pledge  and  the  foretaste  not  only  of  immortality, 
but  of  a  Resurrection  to  life  and  glory. 

Such  a  hope,  consistent  in  itself,  and  satisfy- 
ing the  deepest  needs  of  our  nature,  essential- 
ly differs  from  and  transcends  all  pre-Christian 
hope. 

What  was  the  hope  of  the  best  and  wisest  of 
pagan  philosophers  ?  At  most,  a  bare  hope  of  • 
Immortality,  a  bare  hope  of  personal  continu- 
ance after  death,  in  some  vague  and  shadowy 
form.  But  Christ  does  not  preach  to  us  Immor- 
tality, He  does  not  promise  us  merely  an  eterni- 
ty of  individual  existence  ;  He  gives  us  now  the 
life  w^hich  cannot  die.  He  gives  it  to  us  in  the 
body,  that  the  body  may  be  consecrated  to  God. 
Nay  more,  God  has  not  only  come  to  tabernacle 
with  us  in  human  flesh,  but  He  dwells  in  7is,  He 
is  one  with  us,  His  Life  is  ours.  Our  souls  and 
our  bodies  are  His,  filled  and  pervaded  with  His 
Life,  and  therefore  can  never  perish. 

What  was  the  hope  of  the  Jew  "^  Kindling 
with  triumph  and  ecstasy,  as  it  rose  above  the 
world  and  time  and  death,  and  laid  its  hand  upon 
God,  it  won  for  itself  the  conviction,  that  He 
who  was  the  Life  of  His  children  and  the  Rock 
of  their  hearts,  would  also  be  their  portion  for 
ever.  But  the  Jew  had  still  the  horror  of  Death 
unvanquished,  of  the  grave  from  which  none  had 
ever  returned.     Whereas  the  Christian  believer 


122  nniORTALITT. 

is  partaker  of  a  life  which  he  not  only  knows  to 
be  the  Life  of  God,  but  the  Life  of  God  which  iji 
human  flesh  has  overcome  death,  and  therefore 
the  sure  pledge  that  he  himself  also  shall  over- 
come death.  It  is  the  same  Life  ;  it  must  there- 
fore win  the  same  victory.  Not  only  is  it  true, 
"  He  that  believeth  in  Me,  though  he  were  dead, 
yet  shall  he  live,"  but  it  is  also  true — and  of  this 
he  has  the  witness  in  himself — "  Whosoever 
liveth  and  believeth  in  Me,  shall  never  die." 
Death  is  abolished.  The  Life  of  which  he  has 
been  made  partaker  is  one  over  which  Death  has 
no  power,  for  it  is  the  Life  of  Him  who  says  : 
"  Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also." 

But  again,  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Re- 
surrection of  the  Body  is  not  only  self-consistent, 
it  commends  itself  to  us  as  in  perfect  harmony 
with  the  observed  facts  of  our  nature.  For  all 
experience  shows  us  how  close  and  intimate  is 
the  union  between  the  soul  and  the  body.  It  is 
quite  true  that,  so  far  as  our  observation  extends, 
the  material  organism  is  destroyed  by  death.  It 
may  be  very  difficult  to  frame  any  probable  hy- 
pothesis for  the  reconstitution  of  the  body,  after 
it  has  turned  to  corruption.  And  yet  as  by  an 
imperious  necessity,  the  body  enters  into  all  our 
conceptions  of  another  life  :  we  would  not  "  be 
unclothed  but  clothed  upon."  And  this  is  not 
exclusively  a  Christian  sentiment.     In  spite  of 


THE  HOPE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN.  I  23 

the  famous  saying  of  Plotinus,  who  thanked  God 
'  that  he  was  not  tied  to  an  immortal  body  ' — a 
saying  which  doubtless  is  expressive  of  a  widely 
prevailing  phase  of  ancient  philosophic  thought 
— a  natural  instinct  is  on  the  side  of  the  Chris- 
tian revelation.  Is  it  not  difficult  even  to  con- 
ceive of  the  spirit,  as  not  merely  continuing  to 
exist  apart  from  the  body, — that  is  a  conception 
which  is  certainly  possible — but  as  continuing 
to  live,  and  continuing  to  act,  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  word,  apart  from  all  organism  whatever  ? 
Have  we  not  seen,  how  in  every  attempt  to  pic- 
ture to  himself  a  future  world,  and  the  employ- 
ments of  the  future  world,  man  involuntarily 
gives  some  shape,  some  form,  in  a  word  some 
body,  to  the  disembodied  spirit  ?  And  is  not 
this  necessary  ?  Does  not  all  thought  become 
action  only  through  the  instrumentality  of  the 
body  ?  Does  not  the  body  act  upon  the  mind, 
as  v^^ell  as  the  mind  upon  the  body  ?  Does  not 
the  body  express,  in  its  very  outlines,  the  har- 
mony or  the  disharmony,  the  beauty  or  the  ugli- 
ness, of  the  unseen  dweller  within  ?  Are  not 
the  features  stamped  with  the  expression  of  the 
care  and  the  sorrow,  the  passion  and  the  unrest, 
the  fierceness  and  the  hate  that  are  working 
within,  or  with  the  peace,  the  serenity,  the  deep 
calm,  as  of  the  infinite  depth  of  heaven  itself, 
which   the   soul   thus   reflects   as   in   a   mirror? 


124  nniORTALITY. 

How  vivid,  how  startling  often  is  the  expression  ! 
What   a   revelation   there   of    the   inner   man  ! 
How  often  even  after  the  soul  has  fled,  there  re- 
mains upon  the  cold  features  of  the  corpse,  the 
living  impress  of  that  soul,  as  if  it  disputed  the 
empire  of  death.     Is  it  not  almost  as  if  the  soul 
had  but  taken  flight  for  a  moment,  and  the  body 
were   waiting    for    the    return   of    its    tenant  ? 
'Never  can  one  who  has  witnessed  this  forget  it. 
In  circumstances  favorable  to  the  preservation 
of  the  body,  Death  has  no  power  to  rob  it  of  this 
witness  to  its  immortality.     Who  that  has  ever 
seen  that  wonderful  death-group  in  the  dead- 
house  of  the  Hospice  of  the  St.  Bernard  has  iiot 
felt  fascinated  and  appalled  by  this  triumph  of 
life  in  death  .'*     In  a  corner  of  that  dark  chamber 
are  to  be  seen  a  mother  and  her  child.     Her  eye 
is  turned  to  Heaven  in  supplication,  and  agony 
is  written  in  every  feature  as  she  strains  her 
child  to  her  bosom,  and  prays  to  God  for  mercy 
and  succor.     It  v/as  thus  she  sank  in  the  blind- 
ing  snow,  it  was  thus   she  died.     Years  have 
passed  since  then  ;  yet  the  thought,  the  agony, 
the  prayer  of  that  last  moment,  are  written  on 
her  face,  never  to  be  obliterated  till  the  form 
shall  crumble,  and  return  to  its  dust,  and  perish. 
Such  a  spectacle  gives  us  a  vivid  conception  of 
the  imperishable  connection  between  rriind  and 
body.     It  helps  us  to  understand  how.  possible  it 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE   CHRISTIAN.  125 

is— may  we  not  say  how  natural  it  is? — that  in 
the  world  to  come,  the  soul  should  resume  its 
ancient  fellowship  with  the  body.  Would  not 
this  indeed  be  almost  a  logical  inference  from  the 
belief,  that  in  the  other  world  we  our  proper 
selves  shall  still  continue  ?  Human  beings  con- 
sist of  body  as  well  as  soul.  The  continuance 
of  human  beings  implies  the  continuance  of  body 
as  well  as  of  soul.  Only  as  we  anticipate  the 
enlargement  and  perfection  of  the  powers  of  the 
soul,  so  we  may  reasonably  anticipate  the  per- 
fecting and  the  exaltation  of  the  body.  In  the 
language  of  the  Apostle,  "  It  is  sown  in  corrup- 
tion, it  is  raised  in  incorruption  ;  it  is  sown  in 
weakness,  it  is  raised  in  power  ;  it  is  sown  a  na- 
tural body,  it  is  raised  a  spiritual  body." 

The  Christian  Doctrine  of  a  Future  Life,  then, 
it  may  be  said,  is  in  conformity  with  our  nature, 
and  meets  and  satisfies  those  yearnings  which 
are  in  themselves  a  witness  to  our  immortality. 
It  regards  the  whole  of  man's  compound  nature. 
It  introduces  no  dissonance,  it  does  not  honor 
one  part  of  our  being,  to  the  neglect  or  degrada- 
tion of  the  other.  The  Life  of  which  it  speaks 
is  a  life  of  the  body  as  well  as  of  the  spirit,  a  life 
the  form  and  pledge  of  which  are  given  in  the 
Resurrection  of  Christ,  a  life  which  is  actually 
communicated  to  us,  by  a  true  and  vital  union 
with  Him  '  *^  ]Pecause  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also." 


126  niMORTALITT. 

I  must  pass  by  many  topics  of  interest  which 
rightfully  belong  to  my  subject ;  for  time  presses. 
In  particular  I  can  say  nothing  now  of  future  re- 
wards and  punishments. 

But  hastening  on  I  must  still  glance  briefly, 
before  I  conclude,  at  some  of  tLose  speculative 
difficulties  which  beset  the  doctrine  of  the  Re- 
surrection of  the  body.  And  I  do  so,  because  I 
know  from  experience,  what  a  real  stumbling- 
block  they  are  to  minds  by  no  means  dull  or  un- 
instructed. 

"  Some  man  may  say,  How  are  the  dead  raised 
up,  and  with  what  body  do  they  come  r  The 
question  put  in  St.  Paul's  day  is  still  frequently 
repeated  in  our  own.  Hdw  can  the  same  body 
which  falls  into  dust  be  raised  again,  to  become 
anew  the  tabernacle  of  the  immortal  spirit } 
The  particles  of  which  it  is  composed  may  be 
scattered  to  the  four  winds,  they  may  assume 
new  forms,  they  may  be  made  to  contribute  to 
the  formation  of  other  beings — of  plants,  of  ani- 
mals, of  men.  How  can  each  several  particle  be 
disentangled,  how  shall  each  be  brought  together 
again  to  constitute  the  same  body  which  was  dis- 
solved at  death  "^  Now  we  presume  to  put  no 
limits  upon  the  Almighty  power  of  God.  We  do 
not  doubt  that  amid  all  the  ceaseless  infinite 
fluctuations  of  the  material  particles  His  eye 
could  trace  each  grain  of  dust,  and  His  hand  col- 


TUB  HOPE   OF  THE   CHRISTIAN.  1 27 

lect  it,  and  bring  it  back  to  reconstitute  the  body. 
But  we  contend  that  any  such  process  is  as  un- 
necessary as  it  is  improbable.  We  maintain 
that  the  same  body  which  has  been  laid  in  the 
grave  may  be  raised  at  the  last  day  ;  though  not 
one  single  material  particle,  which  went  to  con- 
stitute the  one  body,  shall  be  found  in  the  other. 
For  what  is  it  that  is  necessary  to  the  identity 
of  the  body  .'*  The  identity  of  the  body  does  not 
depend  on  the  identity  of  the  material  particles 
of  which  it  is  composed.  These  are  in  a  state 
of  perpetual  flux.  The  body  of  our  childhood  is 
not  the  body  of  our  youth,  nor  the  body  of  our 
youth  that  of  our  manhood,  nor  the  body  of  our 
manhood  that  of  our  old  age.  Every  particle 
has  changed,  and  yet  it  is  the  same  body  :  the 
person  to  whom  it  belongs  still  continues  the  same 
person.  If  you  insist  upon  it  that  every  particle 
of  matter  of  which  my  body  is  built  must  be 
brought  together  to  form  my  new  resurrection- 
body,  then  I  ask,  What  body  during  this  present 
life  is  my  true  body  }  Is  it  the  body  of  my  child- 
hood, or  of  my  youth,  or  of  my  old  age  .^  The 
body  in  which  I  die  is  no  more  truly  mine,  than 
the  body  with  which  I  came  into 'the  world. 
Both  are  mine,  both  are  in  some  sense  the  same/ 
and  yet  they  have  not  a  single  material  particle 
in  common.  What  possible  reason  is  there  then 
for  contending,  that  the  body  which  is  laid  in 


128  UniORTALITT. 

the  grave,  must  be  brought  together  again,  par- 
ticle for  particle,  at  the  resurrection  ;  when  it  is 
no  more  essentially  a  part  of  myself,  than  my 
body  at  any  other  stage  of  my  existence  ?  The 
only  thing  of  which  we  need  to  be  assured  is, 
that  the  principle  of  identity  which  governs  the 
formation  of  the  body  in  this  life,  shall -govern  its 
formation  at  the  resurrection.  In  the  ever-flow- 
ing torrent  of  life,  as  wave  after  wave  passes 
through  our  bodily  frame,  bringing  with  it 
growth  and  variety  in  the  structure,  there  is 
some  principle,  or  law,  or  specific  form,  call  it 
what  you  will,  which  remains  ever  the  same. 
The  organism  is  essentially  one,  despite  the 
modifications  of  size,  of  form,  of  inward  constitu- 
tion. This  holds  in  every  region  of  nature, 
where  there  is  life.  From  the  acorn  buried  in 
the  earth,  there  springs  first  the  little  slender 
stalk,  the  germinant  shoot  hidden  between  its 
two  cotyledons,  then  the  sapling,  then  the  mon- 
arch of  the  forest.  But  the  oak  and  the  germi- 
nant shoot,  and  the  acorn,  unlike  as  they  are  in 
appearance,  are  one  and  the  same  vegetable  ex- 
istence. The  butterfly  which  unfolds  its  wings 
of  purple  and  gold  in  the  summer's  sun,  is  the 
same  creature  which  was  but  lately  a  chrysalis, 
and  before  that  a  crawling  worm,  and  before  that 
an  embryo  in  a  tiny  Qgg.  And  is  it  not  the 
same  with  man  }     Is  not  the  human  embr3^o  the 


THE  HOVE    OF  THE    CHUISTIAX.  1 29 

same  individual  when  it  becomes  child,  youth, 
old  man  ?  And  yet  does  there  remain  in  the 
oak,  in  the  butterfly,  in  the  man,  a  single  one  of 
the  ponderable  molecules  which  existed  in  the 
germ,  the  o^ggy  the  embryo  ?  What  physiologist 
would  venture  to  affirm  there  is  ?  And  still  we 
repeat,  it  is  the  same  vegetable,  the  same  insect? 
the  same  man. 

What  then  is  this  thing  which  remains  ever 
the  same,  the  same  in  the  vegetable  in  all  its 
developments/  the  same  in  the  insect  in  all  its 
metamorphoses,  the  same  in  the  human- body 
in  every  phase  of  its  existence  ?  What  is  this, 
which  never  perishes,  is  never  destroyed,  in  all 
the  changes  and  fluctuations  of  the  material 
organism  ?  It  escapes  all  our  investigations  ; 
we  see  it  only  in  its  manifestations,  in  the  phe- 
nomena of  life  ;  but  that  it  is  a  reality  all  obser- 
vation goes  to  show :  and  if  through  all  the 
changes  of  the  body  during  this  life,  this  princi- 
ple continues  in  all  its  force,  why  may  it  not  sur- 
vive the  shock  of  death  ?  Why  may  not  this 
specific  form,  as  Gregory  of  Nyssa  terms  it,  re- 
main united  to  the  soul,  as  he  conjectured  (and 
as  other  thinkers  like  Leibnitz  have  supposed), 
after  its  separation  from  the  body,  and  thus  be- 
come at  length  the  agent  in  the  resurrection,  by 
reconstituting,  though  in  a  new  and  transfigured 
condition,   the    body   which   was    dissolved    at 


130  nniORTALlTY. 

death  ?  Why  may  not .  the  same  body,  which 
was  sown  in  corruption,  be  raised  in  incorrup- 
tion,  and  that  which  was  sown  a  natural  body, 
be  raised  a  spiritual  body  ?  There  is  at  least 
nothing  improbable  in  such  a  supposition  ;  there 
is  everything  in  the  analogies  of  Nature  to  con- 
firm it ;  and  when  Revelation  is  silent,  we  may 
■be  thankful  for  such  glimpses  of  probability  as 
come  to  us  in  aid  of  our  Faith. 

Lastly,  this  deliverance,  this  perfection,  this 
glorifying  of  the  human  body,  is  in  the  Christian 
scheme,  intimately  connected  with  the  deliver- 
ance, the  perfection,  the  glorifying  of  the  whole 
visible  creation.  -As  they  who  are  one  with 
their  risen  Lord,  ransomed  by  Him  from  the 
power  of  Death,  and  raised  with  Him  even  here 
to  newness  of  life,  still  wait  for  the  adoption,  to 
wit,  the  redemption  of  their  body  ;  so  when  that 
redemption  shall  be  accomplished,  the  creation 
itself  shall  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  cor- 
ruption into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children 
of  God.  There  shall  be  new  heavens  and  a  new 
earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness.  This  is 
the  great  consummation,  to  which  all  is  tending. 
The  universal  curse  shall  be  changed  into  uni- 
versal blessing.  The  signature  of  Sin  and 
Death,  and  the  serpent's  trail,  shall  be  for  ever 
effaced,  and  the  signature  of  God,  unblotted  and 
undefiled,  shall  be  seen  on  every  portion  of  the 


TUE  HOPE   OF  THE   CHEISTIAN.  131 

works  of  His  hands.  All  things  shall  reach  that 
perfection,  that  ideal  which  now  as  it  were  with 
sighs  and  groans  of  travail,  they  seem  ever  to  be 
seeking,  never  to  attain.  For  there  is  nothing 
created  so  mean,  or  sq  trifling,  that  it  is  not  a 
thought  of  God,  and  therefore  it  must  be  realized, 
it  must  be  perfected.  "  All  that  is  transitory," 
says  the  great  German  poet,  "  is  only  a  para- 
ble," *  a  parable  of  that  which  in  truth  it  ought 
to  be,  of  that  v/hich  finally  it  shall  be.  "  That 
which  falls  short  of  its  end,"  he  continues, ''  shall 
attain  to  its  end."  It  shall  be  seen  that  not  one 
of  the  creative  thoughts  of  God,  not  one  of  His 
works  has  only  a  transitory  purpose,  that  noth- 
ing has  been  made  only  to  be  destroyed,  but 
that  all  has  been  made  to  be  perfected,  trans- 
figured, glorified.  "  Behold  I  make  all  things 
new  ;"  these  are  the  words  of  glorious  hope,  of 
boundless  promise,  which  the  seer  of  the  New 
Testament  hears  issuing  from  the  Everlasting 
Throne.  The  veil  which  hides  the  inner  glory 
of  the  world,  the  covering  spread  over  all  nations, 
the  symbol  of  transitoriness  and  corruption, 
shall  be  taken  away,  and  coming  forth  as  by  a 
resurrection,  in  new  s  lendor  and  beauty,  shall, 
be  perfectly  disclosed  the  hidden  meaning,  the 
eternal  idea,  of  its  Creator  and  Redeemer,  God. 

*  Alles  Vergangliche  is':  nur  ein  Parabel.' — Goethe. 


132  iJiJioirrALiTr. 

But  meanwhile,  tied  and  bound  as  we  are  with 
the  chain  of  earthly  things,  busied  with  the  poor 
and  fleeting  aims  of  this  life,  buried  in  its  cares, 
its  pleasures,  its  distractions,  can  we  for  a  mo- 
ment rise  above  them  and  make  full  proof  of  our 
eternal  hopes  ?  Can  we  grasp  Eternity  in  the 
midst  of  time  ?  Can  we  without  being  led  astray 
by  the  false  lights  of  the  imagination,  obtain 
some  foretaste  of  the  future  glory  ? 

"  More  than  fourteen  centuries  ago,*  on  the 
shores  of  the  Italian  sea,  that  Eternal  life  of 
which  I  have  been  speaking  was  the  subject  of 
discourse  between  a  woman  who  was  drawing 
near  to  the  end  of  life,  and  a  man,  still  in  the 
prime  of  his  years,  who  had  just  consecrated 
himself  to  the  work  of  Christ.  We  may  have 
seen  the  engraving  from  a  picture  by  Ary  Schef- 
fer,  at  the  bottom  of  which  are  inscribed  the 
words,  '  St.  Augustine  and  his  mother  Monica.' 
We  may  have  noticed  those  two  faces  turned  to- 
wards the  same  heaven,  where  one  seems  to  be 
seeking  some  foretaste  of  an  approaching  felicity, 
and  the  other,  the  strength  and  the  courage 
which  should  fit  him  for  his  arduous  task,  as  the 
future  champion  of  the  Faith.  In  the  page 
which  inspired  the  painter,  Augustine  thus 
speaks  : 

*  See  E.  Naville,  La  Vie  Eiernclle. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE   CHRISTIAN.  1 33 

'  When  the  day  drew  near  on  which  my  mo- 
ther was  to  leave  this  life,  it  chanced  that  we 
found  ourselves  alone,  she  and  I,  leaning  upon 
the  sill  of  a  window  which  looked  on  the  garden 
of  the  house  where  we  had  stopped  at  the  port 
of  Ostia.  There,  far  from  the  crowd,  after  the 
fatigue  of  a  long  journey,  we  were  waiting  for  the 
moment  when  we  must  set  sail.  We  were  alone, 
conversing  with  indescribable  sweetness  ;  and 
forgetting  the  past,  and  stretching  forward  to- 
wards the  future,  we  asked  ourselves,  what  shall 
be  for  the  saints  that  eternal  life,  "  which  eye 
hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  and  which  hath  not 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man  "  ?  And  borne 
aloft  on  the  wing  of  Love  towards  Him  who  is, 
we  climbed,  as  it  were,  up  through  those  celes- 
tial regions,  whence  the  stars,  the  moon  and  the 
sun,  send  us  their  light.  And  rising  still  higher 
in  our  thoughts,  in  our  words,  in  our  admiration 
of  Thy  works,  O  Lord,  w^e  sought  in  our  own 
souls  to  attain  to  that  uncreated  wisdom,  which 
is  that  which  it  hath  been,  that  which  it  shall  be 
always,  or  rather,  in  which  there  is  no  hath  been, 
or  shall  be,  but  only  is,  because  it  is  eternal. 
And  as  we  thus  spake,  in  our  ardent  aspirations 
towards  that  life,  we  touched  it  for  a  moment 
with  a  bound  of  the  heart,  and  sighed  as  we  left 
there  captive  the  first-fruits  of  the  Spirit,  and 


134  niMORTALITT. 

came  back  again  to  the  sound  of  the  voice,  to 
the  word  which  begins  and  ends. 

'  Then  we  said  :  Let  there  be  a  soul  in  which 
every  earthly  passion  is  hushed,  and  the  soul  it- 
self, hushed  into  silence  and  forgetfulness  of  it- 
self; let  there  be  no  voice  heard  in  it,  but  the 
voice  of  Him  alone  speaking  not  by  His  crea- 
tures, but  by  Himself;  let  Him  speak  only 
whom  we  love  in  all ;  and  speak  in  the  absence 
of  all ;  let  our  thought  rest  only  in  Him,  and  in- 
sensible to  every  lower  object,  ravish,  lead  us 
captive,  absorb  us,  in  that  great  joy  ;  in  short,  let 
the  eternal  life  be  but  like  that  fugitive  ecstasy, 
the  remembrance  of  which  makes  us  still  sigh — 
is  not  this  the  promise  of  that  word :  "  Enter 
thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord  ?"  Such  were  our 
thoughts  in  this  conversation  ;  and  that  same 
day  my  mother  said  to  me,  "  My  son,  so  far  as  I 
am  concerned,  there  is  nothing  more  to  bind  me 
to  life.  What  should  I  do  in  it }  There  was 
one  thing  for  which  I  desired  to  continue  in  life, 
and  that  was  to  see  you  a  Christian,  before  I 
died.  My  God  has  granted  me  that,  and  more 
than  that ;  why  should  I  tarry  here  any  lon- 
ger .? '"  * 

In  this*  page,  "  in  which  the  faith  of  a  Christian 


*  Augustine,  Confess.  Lib.  ix.     I  have  omitted  some  portions 
of  the  passage  and  freely  paraphrased  others. 


THE  HOPE   OF  THE   CHRISTIAN.  135 

is  expressed  in  the  language  of  a  Plato,"  St.  Au- 
gustine declares  that  he  obtained,  for  a  brief 
passing  momen:,  a  sight  of  the  heavenly  glory, 
surpassing  thought  and  all  power  of  human  ut- 
terance. Such  a  vision  may  not  be  vouchsafed 
to  us.  It  is  not  given  to  all  men  to  see,  with  a 
Stephen,  heaven  open  and  Jesus  standing  on  the 
right  hand  of  God,  or  with  a  Paul,  to  be  rapt  into 
the  third  heavens,  or  with  a  John  a  tPatmos,  to 
gaze  on  the  temple  aoove,  and  the  golden  city, 
and  saints  and  angels,  striking  their  harps  and 
raising  their  triumphant  songs  to  the  Lamb  who 
died  ;  but  it  is  given  to  every  servant  of  God  to 
know  in  whom  he  has  believed.  The  humblest 
and  the  weakest  need  not  fear  death,  because 
Jesus  has  died.  The  humblest  and  the  weakest 
may  lie  down  in  the  grave,  in  sure  hope  of  a  joy- 
ful Resurrection.  For  each  one  may  say,  with 
meek  yet  rejoic-ng  faith.  He  loved  me  ;  He  gave 
Himself  for  me  ;  He  rose  from  the  dead.  What 
shall  separate  me  from  the  love  of  Christ  .^  In 
^//things  I  am  more  than  conqueror  through 
Him  that  loves  me,  "  P'or  I  am  persuaded  that 
neither  death,  nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor  principali- 
ties, nor  powers,  nor  things  present,  nor  things 
to  come,  nor  height,"  nor  depth,  nor  any  other 
creature,  shall  be  able  to  separate  me  from  the 
love  of  God  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord." 
"  Because  He  lives  I  shall  live  also." 


APPENDIX. 


Lecture  I.  p.  15.     Note  A. 

Since  writing  this  Lecture,  I  have  read  Pro- 
fessor Tyndall's  Address  dehvered  by  him  as 
President  of  the  Mathematical  and  Physical 
Science  Section  of  the  British  Association  at 
their  Meeting  in  Norwich  last  year.  A  passage 
in  that  address,  which  amply  confirms  all  that  I 
have  said  on  the  relation  of  the  brain  to  thought, 
I  here  subjoin : 

"  Associated  with  this  wonderful  mechanism 
of  the  animal  body,  we  have  phenomena  no  less 
certain  than  those  of  physics,  but  between 
which  and  the  mechanism  we  discern  no  neces- 
sary connection.  A  man,  for  example,  can  say, 
I  feel,  I  tJiink,  I  love  ;  but  how  does  conscioitsiiess 
infuse  itself  into  the  problem  ?  The  human  brain 
is  said  to  be  the  organ  of  thought  and  feeling : 
when  we  are  hurt,  the  brain  feels  it ;  when  we 
ponder,  it  is  the  brain  that  thinks  ;  when  our 


APPENDIX,  137 

passions  or  affections  are  excited,  it  is  through 
the  instrumentahty  of  the  brain.  Let  us  en- 
deavor to  be  a  Httle  more  precise  here.  I 
hardly  imagine  that  any  profound  scientific 
thinker,  who  has  reflected  upon  the  subject,  ex- 
ists, who  would  not  admit  the  extreme  probabili- 
ty of  the  hypothesis,  that  for  every  fact  of  con- 
sciousness, whether  in  the  domain  of  sense,  of 
thought,  or  of  emotion,  a  certain  definite  molecu- 
lar condition  is  set  up  in  the  bidhi ;  that  this  re- 
lation of  physics  to  consciousness  is  invariable  ; 
so  that  given  the  state  of  the  brain,  the  corre- 
sponding thought  or  feeling  might  be  inferred  ; 
or  given  the  thought  or  feeling,  the  correspond- 
in;^  state  of  the  brain  might  be  inferred .''  But 
hov  inferred  ?  It  is  at  bottom  not  a  case  of 
log"  al  inference  at  all,  but  of  empirical  associa- 
tion. You  may  reply  that  many  of  the  inferen- 
ces of  science  are  of  this  character,  the  inference 
for  example  that  an  electric  current  of  a  given 
direction  will  deflect  a  magnetic  needle  in  a  defi- 
nite way  ;  but  the  cases  differ  in  this,  that  the 
passage  from  the  current  to  the  needle,  if  not 
demonstrable,  is  thinkable,  and  that  we  enter- 
tain no  doubt  as  to  the  final  mechanicah  solution 
of  the  problem  ;  but  the  passage  from  the  phy- 
sics of  the  brain  to  the  corresponding  facts  of 
consciousness  is  unthinkable.  Granted  that  a 
definite  thought  and  a  definite  molecular  action 


1 38  APPEXDIX. 

in  the  brain  occur  simultaneously  ;  we  do  not 
possess  the  intellectual  organ,  nor  apparently 
any  rudiment  of  the  organ,  which  would  enable 
us  to  pass,  by  a  process  of  reasoning,  from  the 
one  phenomenon  to  the  other.  They  appear  to- 
gether, but  we  do  not  know  why.  Were  our 
minds  and  senses  so  expanded,  strengthened,  and 
illuminated,  as  to  enable  us  to  see  and  feel  the 
very  molecules  of  the  brain  ;  were  we  capable  of 
following  all  their  motions,  all  their  grouping,  all 
their  electric  discharges,  if  such  there  be  ;  and 
were  we  intimately  acquainted  with  the  corre- 
sponding states  of  thought  and  feeling,  we  should 
probably  be  as  far  as  ever  from  the  solution  of 
the  problem.  How  are  these  physical  processes 
connected  with  the  facts  of  consciousness  }  The 
chasm  between  the  two  class'fes  of  phenome- 
na would  still  remain  intellectually  impassable. 
Let  the  consciousness  of  love,  for  example,  be 
associated  with  a  right-handed  spiral  motion  of 
the  molecules  of  the  brain,  and  the  conscious- 
ness of  hate  with  a  left-handed  spiral  motion. 
We  should  then  know  when  we  love  that  the 
motion  is  in  one  direction,  and  when  we  hate 
that  the  motion  is  in  the  other,  but  the  '  Why  1 ' 
would  still  remain  unanswered.  In  affirming 
that  the  growth  of  the  body  is  mechanical,  and 
that  thought,  as  exercised  by  us,  has  its  correla- 
tive in  the  physics  of  the  brain,  I  think  the  posi- 


AFPEXDIX.  139 

tion  of  the  ^  materialist '  is  stated  as  far  as  that 
position  is  a  tenable  one.  I  think  the  materialist 
will  be  able  finally  to  maintain  this  position 
against  all  attacks  ;  but  I  do  not  think  as  the 
human  mind  is  at  present  constituted,  that  he 
can  pass  beyond  it.  I  do  not  think  he  is  entitled 
to  say  that  his  molecular  grouping  and  his  mo- 
lecular motions  explain  everything.  In  reality 
they  explain  nothing.  The  utmost  he  can  affirm 
is  the  association  of  two  classes  of  phenomena, 
of  whose  real  bond  of  union  he  is  in  absolute 
ignorance.  The  problem  of  the  connexion  of 
body  and  soul  is  as  insoluble  in  its  modern  form 
as  it  was  in  the  pre-scientific  ages.  Phosphorus 
is  known  to  enter  into  the  composition  of  the 
human  brain,  and  a  courageous  writer  has  ex- 
claimed in  his  trenchant  German,  *  Ohne  Phos- 
phor kein  Gedanke.'  That  may  or  may  not  be 
the  case  ;  but  even  if  we  knew  it  to  be  the  case, 
the  knowledge  would  not  lighten  our  darkness. 
On  both  sides  of  the  zone  here  assigned  to  the 
materialist  he  is  equally  helpless.  If  you  ask 
him  whence  is  this  '  matter,'  of  which  we  have 
been  discoursing,  who  or  what  divided  it  into 
molecules,  who  or  what  impressed  upon  them 
this  necessity  of  running  into  organic  forms,  he 
has  no  answer.  Science  also  is  mute  in  reply  to 
these  questions.  But  if  the  materialist  is  con- 
founded and  science  is  dumb,  who  else  is  entitled 


140  APrEXDIX. 

to  answer  ?  To  whom  has  the  secret  been  re- 
vealed ?  Let  us  lower  our  heads  and  acknow- 
ledge our  ignorance  one  and  all.  Perhaps  the 
mystery  may  resolve  itself  into  knowledge  at 
some  future  day." 

From  the  Athenmim  for  Aug.  29,  1868. 


Lecture  III.  p.  92. 

After  all  that  has  been  written  on  this  cele- 
brated passage  (Job  xix.  24 — 26),  the  rendering 
still  remains  doubtful,  as  well  as  the  interpreta- 
tion. 

Ewald  renders  : 

O  dass  doch  aufgeschrieben  melne  Worte, 

ins  Buch — o  dass  sie  wiirden  eingezeichnet ; 
mit  Eisengriffel  und  mit  Blei 

auf  ewig  wiirden  in  den  Fels  gehauen  ! 
Aber  ich  weiss  es,  m'ein  Erloser  lebt, 

ein  Nachmann  auf  dem  Staube  wird  erstehen  ; 
nach  meiner  Haut,  die  man  abgeschlagen,  dieser, 

und  frei  vom  Leibe  werd'  ich  schauen — Gott : 
ihn  den  ich  schauen  werde  inir, 

gesehn  von  vieinen  Augen  und  nicht  fremden  ! 
— es  schwinden  die  Nieren  in  Busen  mir  ! 

Renan  : 

Oh  !  qui  me  donnera  que  mes  paroles  soient  ^crites, 
Qu'elles  soient  ^crites  dans  un  livre,  qu'elles  soient 
gravees 


APPEXniX.  141 

Avec  un  stylet  de  fer  et  avec  clu  plomb, 
Ou'a  jamais  elles  soient  sculptdes  siir  le  roc  ; 

Car  je  le  sais,  mon  vengeur  existe, 
Et  il  apparaitra  enfin  sur  la  terre. 

Ouand  cette  peau  sera  tombee  en  lambeaux, 
Prive  de  ma  chair,  je  verrai  Dieu. 

Je  le  verrai  pour  moi-meme  ; 

Mes  yeux  le  coiitempleront,  non  ceux  d'un  autre  ; 

Mes  reins  se  consument  d'attente  au-dedans  de  moi. 

Renan  explains  this  hope  on  the  part  of  Job 
that  he  "  shall  see  God,"  by  saying  :  "  Job  s'a- 
bandonne  a  I'esperance  de  voir  Dieu  descendre 
im  jour  sur  la  terre,  quand  il  sera  reduit  a  I'etat 
de  squelette,  pour  le  venger  de  ses  adversaires." 
Both  he  and  Ewald,  as  I  have  remarked,  render, 
'I'li^S)?  "  ivithotit  my  fiQ?,^,''  thus  conceding  to  Job 
the  hope  of  Immortality,  but  not  conceding  to 
him  the  hope  of  a  Resurrection.  But  although 
"^  is  certainly  sometimes  used  in  a  negative 
sense,  I  believe  that  in  all  cases  where  it  is  so 
used,  there  is  something  in  the  context  to  guide 
us  as  to  its  signification.  Used  as  it  is  here, 
merely  dependent  on  such  a  verb  as  nms*.,  I  con- 
fess it  seems  to  me  that  the  preposition  can  only 
have  its  usual  meaning  "  from."  So  far  I  entire- 
ly agree  with  Dr.  Pusey's  criticism  when  he  says 
{Daniely  p.  505  note) :  "  The  rendering  of  "^"l'^"?^. 


142  APFAWniX. 

*  without  my  flesh,'  adopted  by  Davidson,  ii.  22/, 
from  Ewald,  is  unidiomatic  and  unnatural.  V? 
can  no  more,  of  itself,  mean  '  without '  than  our 

*  from.'  "  But  I  must  part  company  from  him, 
when  he  asserts,  that  "  no  doubtful  meaning  of 
any  words  can  efface  from  the  passage  the  doc- 
trine of  the  resurrection  of  the  flesh,"  and  I 
must  demur  to  his  rendering  of  the  line  : 

And  after  my  skin,  they  have  destroyed  this  dodj/, 
as  being  to  the  full  as  objectionable,  as  the  ren- 
dering of  the  line  following  by  Ewald,  Renan, 
and  others.  What  possible  pretext  can  there  be 
for  supplying  the  noun  "  body  "  with  the  femi- 
nine pronoun  nyJT  ?  The  word  "  body  "  is  not  in 
the  original,  nor  is  it  suggested  by  the  context, 
any  more  than  the  word  ."  worms,"  which  has 
been  introduced  by  our  Authorized  Version.  I 
believe  myself  it  is  better  to  take  the  pronoun 
adverbially,  with  Havernick,  or  as  a  kind  of 
further  predicate,  said  SstK-uiGJg,^'  and  I  would 
render  the  passage  as  follows  : 

"  I,  even  I,  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth, 
And  that  at  the  last,  He  shall  stand  upon  the  earth 

(Ht.  dust)  ; 
And  after  my  skin  has  been  thus  pierced  through,  f 

*  And  so  it  is  also  taken  in  H.  H.  Bernard's  Book  of  yob, 
edited  by  Mr,  Chance,  p.  171,  where  the  whole  passage  is  ex- 
plained as  having  only  a  reference  to  this  life. 

t  In  allusion  to  the  ghastly  disease,  probably  elephantiasis, 
from  which  he  v/as  suffering. 


APPEXDIX.  143 

Yet  from  my  flesh,  I  shall  behold  God, 
Whom  /  shall  behold/(7r  myself, 
And  mine  eyes  shall  behold  and  not  a  stranger's. 
My  rein-s  are  consumed  within  me." 

The  last  line  probably  alludes  to  Job's  longing 
for  the  time  when  God  shall  appear  to  maintain 
his  cause  against  his  friends,  and  to  make  his 
innocence  clear.  Having  mentioned  the  name 
of  Havernick,  I  may  say,  that  in  his  Voidesungeii 
iiber  die  TJieologie  des  Alteii  Testaments,  p.  203, 
he  discusses  the  passage  critically,  and  denies 
all  reference  in  it  to  a  future  life,  though  he  also 
renders  "^^^^^  "  und  von  Fleisch  entblosst,"  con- 
necting this,  however,  with  what  precedes,  and 
explaining  it  to  mean,  "  in  spite  of  all  I  have 
suffered,  though  I  am  but  like  a  skeleton  with- 
out flesh,  still  I  shall  see  God,  i.e.  be  conscious 
of  and  enjoy  His  immediate  manifested  presence 
in  this  life."  It  is  painful  to  think  that  the  in- 
terpretation of  such  a  passage  should  be  made 
a  test  of  orthodoxy,  and  that  a  critic  may  incur 
the  charge  of  "  rationalism  "  who  dares  to  say 
honestly,  that  he  cannot  accept  the  current  in- 
terpretation, that  he  believes  the  Hebrew  has 
another  meaning.  It  is  therefore  some  relief,  to 
find  a  critic  of  such  unquestionable  orthodoxy  as 
Havernick  taking  the  same  view.  Surely  it  is 
high  time,  as  I  have  already  said  in  my  Preface, 
that  we  should  agree  to  settle  the  meaning  of 


144  APT  END  IX. 

words,  ill  accordance  with  the  rules  of  grammar, 
and  with  reference  to  the  general  scope  of  a  wri- 
ter's argument  ;  and  that  we  should  abstain 
from  calling  one  another  hard  names,  when  we 
happen  to  differ  in  our  conclusions. 

I  cannot  but  think,  that  the  more  carefully 
the  Book  of  Job  is  studied,  as  a  whole,  the  less 
probable  will  it  appear  that  he  is  here  uttering 
any  distinc  thope  either  of  Immortality  or  of 
a  Resurrection.  On  what  grounds  Mr.  Liddon 
(University  Sermons,  p.  99)  can  speak  of  the 
Book  as  "  throughout  a  very  hymn  of  immor- 
tality," I  am  at  a  loss  to  conceive.  A  recent 
writer,  M.  Godet,  in  his  review  of  Renan's  Job, 
has  taken,  as  it  seems  to  me,  a  far  juster  view 
both  of  the  general  scope  of  the  Poem,  and  also 
of  the  particular  passage  under  consideration. 
His  article  appeared  first  in  the  Revue  Chre- 
tienne  for  i860,  and  subsequently,  translated 
into  German,  in  the  Studien  nnd Kritikeii  for  i  Z6^. 

At  the  risk  of  lengthening  this  note  somewhat 
unduly  I  give  the  following  extract : 

"  The  problem  [of  the  Book  of  Job]  is  this, 
How  far  suffering  is  a  proof  of  guilt }  Is  the 
punishment  always  in  proportion  to  the  sin  } 
Does  the  epithet  '  merited '  necessarily  attach 
to  the  word  *  misfortune  ' } 

"  The  love  of  our  neighbor  seeks  anxiously 
for  an  escape   from    such   a   conclusion.     The 


APPENDIX.  145 

Book  of  Job  shows  us  how  to  escape  from  it. 
In  this  Book,  God  Himself  initiates  us  into  one 
of  the  deepest  mysteries  of  His  government. 
He  teaches  us  that  there  are  cases  in  which  He 
chastens  men,  neither  for  their  transgression, 
nor  to  purify  them,  but  only  for  His  own  glory. 
Blessed  is  the  man,  who  suffers  for  so  high  an 
end  !  That  he  can  do  so  is  his  glory  ;  that  he 
will  do  so  is  God's  glory." 

"  No  one,  I  think,  will  deny  the  loftiness  of 
such  a  Theodicaea. 

"  We  must  however  draw  attention  to  the  re- 
markable circumstance,  that  the  Book  of  Job 
succeeds  in  solving  the  problem  without  intro- 
ducing the  doctrine  of  future  retribution,  a  doc- 
trine which  has  always  been  regarded  as  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  its  solution. 

"  Have  not  all  thinkers  from  Plato  to  Kant 
had  recourse  to  the  dogma  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  when  they  have  attempted  to  explain 
the  apparently  unequal  distribution  of  human 
suffering  ?  The  Book  of  Job  is  a  solitary  excep- 
tion :  the  Poet  ventures  to  handle  the  problem 
without  any  such  assistance.  Was  it  perchance, 
as  some  critics  have  conjectured,  that  the  dogma 
of  immortality  was  unknown  to  him  .-*  Granted 
that  it  were  so,  it  would  redound  the  more  to  his 
honor,  that  he  should  have  succeeded  in  solving 
the  problem,  under  circumstances  so  unfavora- 


146  APPENDIX. 

ble  to  success.  To  say  nothing,  however,  of  ex- 
amples like  those  of  Enoch  and  Elijah,  the  Book 
of  Genesis  hints,  in  more  than  one  passage,  at  a 
belief  in  personal  continuance  after  death.  For 
instance,  a  distinction  is  made  between  the 
burial  of  Abraham  and  his  being  "  gathered  to 
his  fathers "  (xxv.  9).  Moreover  it  is  well 
known,  that  the  doctrine  of  immortality  and  fu- 
ture retribution  were  fundamental  articles  of  the 
Egyptian  creed.  How  could  such  truths  be  un- 
known to  the  Hebrews,  who  had  lived  in  Egypt 
for  400  years  1  The  rudest  tribes  have  had 
some  conception  of  this  truth  ;  how  impossible 
to  suppose  that  the  nation,  v/hich  in  point  of  re- 
ligious education  was  the  most  advanced,  should 
alone  have  remained  ignorant  of  it  ?  Historical- 
ly such  a  view  is  absolutely  without  foundation. 
How  comes  it  to  pass  then,  that  the  Book  of 
Job,  which  ought  to  have  laid  particular  stress 
on  this  truth,  as  being  according  to  our  modes 
of  thought  decisive  of  the  question,  makes  no 
use  of  it  at  all } 

"  Revelation  amongst  the  Jewish  nation  has, 
as  we  might  expect,  always  kept  pace  with  the 
history.  It  has  developed,  extended,  taken  its 
shape,  in  the  same  degree  as  the  destiny  of  the 
people.  It  Was  the  destiny  of  Israel  to  prepare 
the  way  for  the  setting  up  of  the  kingdom  of 
God,  not  in  heaven  but  ttpo?i  earth,  by  means  of 


APPENDIX.  147 

the  Messiah.  Consequently  all  questions  bear- 
ing on  personal  continuity  of  existence  had,  in 
the  strictest  sense,  nothing  to  do  with  the  posi- 
tive mission  of  this  people.  Express  revelations 
on  this  point  would  have  turned  away  their  eyes 
from  the  goal  set  before  them,  instead  of  fixing 
them  upon  it.  With  the  Christian  Church  the 
case  is  very  different.  This  has  a  destiny  which 
embraces  both,  heaven  and  earth.  In  this  way 
is  very  naturally  explained  the  silence  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  the  fulness  of  revelation  in  the 
New  respecting  the  future  life.  But  the  author 
of  the  Book  of  Job  who  came  forward,  not  as 
a  philosopher  but  as  the  organ  of  Revelation, 
could  not  step  beyond  the  limits  of  the  Revela- 
tion then  vouchsafed. 

"  If,  however,  he  is  silent  with  regard  to  the 
doctrine  of  future  recompense,  he  nevertheless 
lays  the  foundation  stone,  on  which  it  is  after- 
wards built.  Do  we  not  see  at  the  close  of  the 
Poem,  the  stream  of  the  divine  blessings  pour- 
ing itself  forth  in  all  its  fulness,  when  the  hero's 
time  of  trial  is  at  an  end  ?  The  divine  mercy 
descends  upon  him  all  the  more  richly  in  pro- 
portion to  his  sufferings  for  God.  Does  not  the 
author  thus  point  to  a  law,  which  includes  the 
principle  of  retribution }  Whether  this  law 
comes  into  operation  in  this  life  or  in  the  next, 
is  a  matter  of  indifference  to  him.     The  Singer 


14S  APPENDIX. 

boldly  places  himself  above  this  alternative. 
The  law  itself  engages  his  attention  more  than 
its  application. 

"  But  I  shall  perhaps  be  found  fault  with  for 
ascribing  to  him  a  strain  of  thought  to  which  he 
was  a  stranger.  Uninfluenced  by  all  the  con- 
tradictory explanations  which  have  been  given 
of  it,  I  appeal  simply  to  the  well-known  passage 
in  which  Job  rises  to  the  summit  of  his  hope, 
chap.  xix.  v.  25  (following  De  Wette's  transla- 
tion) : 

" '  I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth,  and  at  the 
last  He  remaineth  upon  the  earth  ;  and  after 
this  my  skin  is  pierced  through,  even  without 
my  flesh  shall  I  see  God  ;  yea,  I  myself  shall 
behold  Him,  mine  eyes  shall  see  Him,  and  not 
a  stranger.' 

"  Does  Job  utter  in  these  words  his  belief  in 
the  Resurrection,  as  the  majority  of  orthodox  in- 
terpreters assume,  or  is  he  thinking  merely  of 
his  recovery  from  his  malady  }  I  venture  (omit- 
ting all  philological  disquisition)  to  maintain,  that 
the  answer  to  this  question  would  perhaps  have 
occasioned  as  much  perplexity  to  Job,  as  to  his 
commentators.  Does  he  know  himself  what 
will  become  of  that  body  of  his,  withered  to  a 
skeleton .?  Can  he  say  whether  the  eating 
leprosy  will  finish  its  work  of  destruction,  or 
whether  God  will   arrest   this  devouring   fire  ? 


APPEXDIX.  149 

He  cannot  ;  and  consequently  he  cannot  say 
positively  beforehand  what  will  be  the  method 
of  his  redemption.  One  thing  only  he  knows, 
that  whether  it  be  by  the  way  of  healing  or  by 
means  of  the  Resurrection,  he  shall  live  again. 
For  his  Redeemer  lives ;  he  knows  Him  ;  it  is 
his  God.  Yes,  Job  shall  live,  for  his  God,  hke 
the  God  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac  and  of  Jacob,  is 
not  a  God  of  the  dead  but  of  the  living. 

"  Job's  assurance  has  reference  neither  to  the 
method,  nor  to  the  place,  nor  to  the  hour,  but 
merely  to  the  thing  itself.  It  makes  no  attempt, 
after  having  uttered  itself,  to  discover  the  means 
and  ways  by  which  God  will  bring  this  to  pass. 

"  This  glorious  conviction  is  certainly  not  the 
same  thing  as  the  dogma  of  personal  perpetuity 
of  existence  ;  but  who  will  deny  that  it  is  the 
pith  and  substance  of  all  living  belief  in  this 
truth  .-*  It  may  be  left  to  later  revelations  to  de- 
velop further  the  thought  which  lies  at  the  bot- 
tom of  these  words  and  to  give  it  clearer  expres- 
sion, but  they  can  add  nothing  to  the  shout  of 
victory  with  which  Job  bids  defiance  to  the  lep- 
rosy or  to  death. 

"  It  must  be  acknowledged,  then,  that  the 
author  kept  strictly  within  the  limits  of  the 
revelation  vouchsafed  to  his  own  age,  and  yet 
nevertheless  fully  met  all  the  requirements  of  the 
problem.     He  has  succeeded  in  throwing  a  clear 


150  APPEXDIX. 

light  on  the  mystery  of  suffering-  Innocence, 
without  on  the  one  side  avaiUng  himself  of  the 
fact  of  sin  committed,  or  the  dogma  of  a  future 
life,  and  without  on  the  other  side  doing  the 
smallest  violence  to  the  righteousness  of  God. 
Tlie  glance  into  the  Sanctuary  of  God,  which 
the  Prologue  gives,  has  fully  satisfied  him.  If  we 
were  here  in  the  field  of  speculation,  this  solu- 
tion would  appear  to  us  a  masterpiece." 


Lecture  III.  p.  10 r. 

It  is  perhaps  liardly  correct  to  say  that 
Chrysostom  has  attempted  a  solution  of  the  pro- 
blem. He  goes  so  far  as  to  assert  that  the  Jews 
before  our  Lord  did  not  know  the  very  name  of 
Gehenna,  or  the  resurrection,  that  till  then  they 
had  never  heard,  either  from  their  prophets,  or 
from  any  one  else,  of  the  resurrection,  or  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  In  particular  he  denies 
that  Job  had  any  knowledge  of  these  truths. 
{ Homilies  on  St.  MattJiezv,  x.  p.  142  a)  ;  xxxiii. 
(al.  xxxiv.)  p.  386  D  ;  xxxvi.  (al.  xxxvii.)  p.  412  A 
(ed.  Bened,).  Comp.  x.  p.  145  d,  and  xvi.  p.  210 
A.  However,  in  another  place  {Serin,  on  Genesis, 
torn.  IV.  p.  194),  he  admits  that,  though  the 
promises  of  the  Old  Testament  were  earthly, 
still  the  saints  under  that  dispensation   hoped 


APrEXDix.  151 

for  heavenly  blessedness.  Augustine,  on  the 
other  hand,  maintahis  that  there  was  a  prepara- 
tion made  by  Moses,  and  -others  of  the  sacred 
writers,  for  the  revelation  of  these  truths,  but 
that  in  them  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life  is  but 
darkly  and  enigmatically  expressed.  {Dc  Gcstis 
Pclagii,  c.  V.  §  14,  15  ;  contra  Faitstitni  lib.  xv. 
and  Epist.  140  ;  De  Civ.  Dei,  x.  24,  25).  So  also 
Theodoret  {In  Dcuteronom)  Quccst.  34  ;  and  Ber- 
nard {Scnn.  XXX.  in  Cant).  These  Fathers  find 
a  reason  for  the  reticence  of  the  Old  Testament 
in  the  fact  that  the  Jewish  nation  was  too  rude 
and  ignorant,  to  be  capable  of  receiving  truths 
so  lofty  ;  and  they  maintain  that  the  veil  was 
raised  little  by  little,  till  at  last  it  was  wholly 
taken  away  by  the  Gospel.  Leibnitz  {Preface 
to  his  Theodicee)  takes  the  same  view. 

Bossuet  writes  {Diss,  de  P salmis,  i.  8)  :  Sane 
confitemur  futuri  saeculi  felicitatem  non  per- 
spicuis  disertisque  verbis,  sed  sub  figurarum 
involucris,  pro  Veteris  Testamenti  ratione,  a 
sancto  Davide,  fuisse  adumbratam."  And  later 
he  suggests  an  explanation  {lb.  10)  :  "  Quin 
igitur,  inquies,  sanctus  David  haec  futuri  sa^cu- 
li  bona  exponebat  planis  disertisque  verbis  "i 
Nempe  quia  hoec  parce  commemoranda  erant, 
quae  crassioribus  ingeniis  risui,  aut  etiam  often- 
diculo  futura  essent :  quippe  cum  in  mortuorum 
animabus,    more    gentilium,    nihil    nisi    impios 


152'  .  APPEXDIX. 

cultus,  falsos  deos  scilicet  ex  hominibus  con- 
secrates, aut  placandis  manibus  inferias,  ac 
divinationes  umbrarumque  citationes,  sive,  lit 
vocant,  necromantias,  aliaque  perinde  inania,  imo 
etiam  noxia  et  infanda,  cogitarent.  Itaque  ani- 
marum  ac  futuri  saeculi  arcana  crasso  adhuc 
populo  tecta  sub  figuris,  quibus  et  perfect!  doceri, 
nee  rudiores  gravari  possent."  So  again  in  his 
Discours  sitr  VHistoire  Universelle,  (Part  ii.  ch. 
19)  :  *'  Diirant  les  temps  qui  ont  jDrecede  Jesus- 
Christ,  ce  que  I'ame  connaissait  de  sa  dignite  et 
de  son  immortahte  I'induisait  le  plus  souvent  a 
erreur.  Le  culte  des  hommes  morts  faisait 
presque  tout  le  fond  de  I'idolatrie.  . . .  C'est 
pourquoi  la  loi  de  Moise  ne  donnait  a  I'homme 
qu'une  premiere  notion  de  la  nature  de  I'ame  et 
de  sa  felicite. .  .C'est  un  des  caracteres  du  peuple 
nouveau,  de  poser  pour  fondement  de  la  religion 
la  foi  de  la  vie  future,  et  ce  devait  etre  le  fruit 
de  la  venue  du  Messie." 

Lecture  IV.  pp.  no  and  129. 

NiTzscH  takes  substantially  the  same  view  of 
the  Christian  scheme  : 

"Die  blosse  Fortdauer  und  Unsterblichkeit 
der  Seele,  oder  die  blosse  Befreiung  von  der 
irdischen  Behausung  erfiillt  die  christliche  Hoff- 
nung  nicht  ;  denn  die  Vollendung  des  Einzelnen 


APPENDIX.  153 

ist  selbst  in  keiner  Weise  voUkommcn,  solange 
das  Ganze  der  Schopfung  iind  der  Kirche  nicht 
mit  ihm  und  er  mit  dem  Ganzen  vollendet  ist 
Der  Christ   wartet  einer   Erlosiuig  dcs  Lcibcs. 
Rom.  viii.   23.     Demnach  hoffen   die    Christen 
Auferstehung  der  Todten,  und  Christi  Aiiferste- 
hung  ist  das  geschichtliche,  die  Gabe  des  heihgen 
Geistes,  des  Geistes  der  Herrlichkeit,  das  innere 
Unterpfand  derselben.     i  Cor.  xv.  20,  Rom.  viii. 
1 1,  der  Leib  aber  der  Auferstandnen  nicht  der 
verwesete,  noch   der  verwesliche.     Natur   und 
Leib  hegen  ein  grosses,  tiefes  Geheimniss.     Die 
Natur  selbst  soil  frei  werden  von  der  Eitelkeit 
und  Verganglichkeit,    der   sie  unterworfen   ist. 
Das  Hervorgehen  aus  dem  Grabe  ist  nur  das 
Bild  oder  die  theilweise  Erscheinung  einer  ver- 
klarenden  Wiedergeburt  oder  Verwandlung  un- 
sers  Einzellebens,  in  welcher  wir  dem  verklarten 
Leibe   des    Erlosers  ahnlich   werden,  nachdem 
wir  in  der  Zeit  das  Bild  des  irdischen  Adams 
getragen  haben.     Phil.  iii.  21,   i    Cor.  xv.  35 — 

50." 

System  der  Christlichen  Lehre,  p.  372  (4te 
Ausgabe). 

Mr.  Westcott's  admirable  essay  on  "  The  Gos- 
pel of  the  Resurrection  "  should  be  consulted  by 
all  who  wish  to  see  the  whole  argument  for  our 
Christian  hope  clearly  and  satisfactorily  stated. 


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